Children of the Tripocalypse
by geistklempner
Summary: AU: Chloe and Buck did not come back after the Glorious Appearing. It's up to Vicki and Judd to build up the COT ministry, and they will have to do it in a very different place...
1. Beginnings

"Forward a bit! Forward... Okay!"

Judd untied the towing cable and waved to the soldier who'd helped him bring the improvised trailer in. The soldier saluted; everybody there was too tired and sleep-deprived to correct her on the matter. She was probably fresh from induction; her uniform was a mixture of old US camo fatigues, bits of Global Community dress uniform, and a white shawl with a red lozenge pattern. It looked military enough, and the AK47 removed any possible doubts. Like pretty much everything, it was a jumbled mess, but it would have to do.

"It's a start." The dilapidated, earthquake-stricken building that had been a strip mall and its attending parking lot had been roughly enclosed on the three open sides by a collection of army tents, semi-derelict caravans and RVs, containers with windows hastily cut by angle grinders, and a rare, precious double-wide prefab in decent condition. It was likewise a jumbles mess, and just in the same way, it would have to do.

Judd started to screw what passed for a water main - formerly an armored vehicle refueling hose - to the tank's outlet. Vicki took a few seconds to start helping.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

"Just..." Vicki waved a hand at the motley collection of dwellings that the couple and their friends had managed to assemble. "This looks like the trailer park I used to live in. Except this is worse. Seven years, seven years of fear and oppression and plagues and... here I am again, full circle!"

"Hey, cheer up. You got me. You got... us. And... technically, you got all this, you're in charge of the whole compound."

"Compound. It looks like a cheap sci-fi set." Admittedly, the boiling plasma clouds behind Vicki did add to that impression. She chuckled to herself, bitterly at first, then sincerely. "Any moment now a cardboard UFO is going to land right here in the middle."

Vicki joined her husband in finishing the water system setup; thank God, they'd already arranged for power, and the sewers in this area were still in decent enough shape to support a small population. A scavenging trip to O'Hare airport, courtesy of Rayford Steele's help, had turned up a ram air turbine from a disabled airliner; Lionel had a plan to turn it into a wind generator as soon as they could erect a mast and carve longer blades for it.

"What should we call it?"

Only a fraction of the Earth's population had survived the Tribulation and the Glorious Appearing into what most Christians around the world chose to call the Kingdom. "How many children of the Tribulation must there be," Vicki said, "who still have to choose Christ over living for themselves?"

"Children of the Tribulation," Judd said. "I like that."

"God has been impressing on me that Kenny will be only one of many children in our charge."

"Me too, Vicki. I find that amazing."

Throughout the evacuation of Jerusalem, Judd and Vicki had ended up looking after the son of Buck and Chloe Williams; the assent of the child's uncle and closest living relative had made the matter easy, considering that the Rayford Steele technically had next-of-kin authority and, more importantly, knew how to fly an airliner and by force of necessity had a say over passenger loads.

The last trans-Atlantic flight had been a week ago; not enough fuel, too much wind, too dangerous now. After the Glorious Appearing and the events that followed, the Earth had been reshaping itself, sometimes violently - the old mountains had come back in a matter of hours, islands reemerged from the deeps, massive ion storms scorched the skies from the twin releases of immense quantities of electrostatic charge that had occurred. It was summer, and yet mornings and evenings were a biting dry cold. The storms showed no intention of calming down.

Vicki got Kenny out of the car; the four-year-old had fallen asleep, and was heavily bundled in a multicolored scarf that almost covered him head to toe. The young couple walked into the double-wide, and took solace at a moment of normality - the lights came on when a switch was flicked, the water flowed when a faucet was opened. Test complete, they quickly turned both off, to conserve resources.

"I cannot imagine the havoc unbelievers could wreak in this new world. I hope God grants us the strength to do with them what He wants."

"Oh, you know He will."

"So... Children of the Tribulation it is?"

"Yes. It's accurate, and it makes a point, I think."

The last chore that Judd wrapped up before locking up for the night was painting the name of the new ministry on a piece of plywood at the new entrance for the compound, over the hastily sprayed ham-radio code that indicated a mustering point under private management. The lettering was a little shaky, but there'd be plenty of room for improvements later; the ichtyos following them, on the other hand, Judd would want to keep for a long time.

The last chore that Vicki wrapped up before curling up with her husband - husband, she reminded herself, he was hers and she was his, and nothing that had happened since could change that - had been to contact the local administration via modem, and tell them that the facility was ready for operation. Transportation was fast becoming a luxury, power was a scarce resource except for hospitals and control hubs, even food and water could be hard to find at times... but communications worked almost perfectly.

Years ago, Carpathia had collected the world's best engineers and builders and put them in charge of setting up a network, Cellular-Solar, intended to one-up the Arpanet and be proof against anything that man, Devil or God could throw at it; it had to keep humanity together, no matter what, even come the Apocalypse.

The system had worked through the Glorious Appearing; those men and women had delivered on their contract with ultimate precision. Any threat to the network's integrity had been neutralized, circumvented or contained, with algorithmic efficiency and endless layers of redundancy. Any threat at all.

Vicki jolted awake from almost-slumber, gave Judd a gentle poke - don't start snoring on us now! - and, before again hugging her man under the blankets, reached upwards and gave a gentle push to Kenny's crib; following a medieval trick she'd read about, Vicki had suspended the crib from the ceiling, for quick access and so that the baby could see and hear his parents without risk of getting squished. Of course, Kenny wasn't their biological son, but... did it matter, at this point?

Before falling asleep, Vicki thought about Jesus. AND KNOW THAT I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS; YES, TO THE END OF TIME, He had said to her, soundlessly, when she last saw Him. Not the end of the world - that had come and gone - but to the end of time itself.

Despite the crazy situation that everybody she knew - including Jesus - were now in, she found the thought comforting enough to fall asleep to.

* * *

Author's Note: Since I've been asked several times, let me make it clear - NO, Buck and Chloe did NOT go to Hell. Buck is a remarkably detestable character, but he is a Christian, which means that in this 'verse, he wouldn't ever go to Hell. Chloe is generally a competent, caring person (at least when she's not around Buck, but I guess she's just that smitten), AND a Christian, so the same rule applies. If you want to find out what happened to them in this AU... read on.


	2. Settling In

The first schoolbus had arrived just as Lionel and Judd completed the erection of the small windtrap; the storm front hadn't showed any sign of moving, which meant that it probably wouldn't any time soon and that the wind in the area would stay constant. Chicago had gone back to being the Windy City. It meant a steady income of electrical power, if they could harness it properly... Judd waved at Vicki; she was expecting the vehicle, and was already moving the gate.

The bus itself was in rough shape; Vicki could see no bullet holes in the frame or window, but mud and scorch marks that she couldn't identify had turned the bottom half of it black. The gasifier fuel trailer made it look like some sort of Mad Max prop, and for a moment she found herself scanning the horizon for raiders. She hadn't heard of any in the area, of course, not even rumors, but it fit the picture a little too well.

Vicki waved in the bus into the parking lot's central area, which had been kept clear, and opened the door to receive the vehicle's precious cargo. Judd and Lionel climbed down to help.

Children - anywhere from one to six years old - orphans of the countless disasters that had made up the Tribulation, or orphans of the last, brief war at the Mount of Olives whose parents had been Jewish rebels or Global Community soldiers. "Facility looks good" shouted the bus driver over the noise of the engine. "Sorry, but if I turn this off, I don't know if it will come on again. Says here you've checked in for sanitation and supplies. Staff?"

"That's me, my husband Judd and my friend Lionel up there. Tanya's out scavenging. Chang and Naomi work at the network node, but quarter with us and already said they'd help part time."

"You're short. We were told there'd be eight people here. I count six, two part time. This is thirty human kids, they're scared, they'll need personal attention."

"We've signed up others, they'll be here in days."

The men had opened the side door on the school bus, and were herding the older children into the double-wide, where a welcome meal of dry cookies and UHT milk had been scavenged.

"You won't have time to do reclamation. I'll try to vector some supplies in for you, but if you're hoping to get disposable diapers or anything like that, odds are low."

"Thank you! Don't worry, God will provide!" Vicki smiled.

The bus driver flipped Vicki off, then dismounted. He was shaved bald, a good foot inches taller than Vicki, and covered in soot from operating the gasifier. "Look here, you. I have no reason to like you people. I'll help you guys, for the kids' sake, but give me an excuse and I'll -"

"Is there a problem?"

The driver turned toward Judd. "Yeah. Your front door sign's got too much fish on it for my taste. You unload the little ones, I'm too damn dirty to touch babies."

The bus driver pointed at the side door, then got to the rear of the bus and started shoveling scrap wood into the fuel pod. It smelled like barbecue.

Lionel gave a sideways glance to the man, shrugged, and helped Vicki and Judd get the babies off the bus. Thirty children, precious, irreplaceable. He didn't exactly sign up for this - the original plan was to help the Thompsons get situated, and then work with a reclamation project in the area - but it was pretty obvious that his friends and their charges were going to need a hand for longer than anticipated. Two hands. Lionel looked at his right arm, miraculously regrown during the Glorious Appearing. He knew that he was not the only one to be so blessed on that day, but had heard that similar things had happened since - both to believers and nonbelievers. Hard to verify ethernet rumors and markerplace gossip, though...

Someone had to watch the older kids as they settled in, and Judd ended up with the job; half of the double wide had been emptied out so as to make a living room of sorts, and a nearby store had been ransacked of pillows and blankets. Soon he had two dozen children quietly munching on dry cookies and UHT milk. He introduced himself, loudly enough to be heard but trying to keep gentleness in his voice. Reading up on the relevant literature hadn't been very helpful; he couldn't exactly pair younger kids with older ones to share responsibility, since the stark reality of it is that there was nobody on Earth older than 7 and younger than 19.

"All right kids! Introductions! I'm Judd. Start from... you, tell me your name and how old you are, okay?"

"I'm Hakim, and I'm five!"

"I'm Cindy, and I'm seven!"

"I'm LeandrrRRra, and I'm fourrRRr!"

"I'm Indiana! I'm six!"

"That's not a people name!"

"Is too! The guy who gave me my hat said so!"

Judd smiled to himself. This was a decent start...

Crying in the other room and an unmistakable smell told him that someone would shortly busy with COT's first diaper change. "I got it!" Vicki called out. "Leo, send the guy on his way!"

Outside, the modified school bus returned to the refugee camp for another load of resettlers. The ion storm front had barely moved, and a gentle but persistent whiff of ozone soon drove away the carbon monoxide from the gasifier.

Tanya Spivey came back from the scavenging run with a significant find - a sack of Eden fertilizer - only to find that, due to general exhaustion on everyone else's part, she'd have to take up laundry duty... after a bunch of little kids had been on a long bus trip. Fertilizer, indeed.

The double-wide was packed with life, to the point that Lionel and Tanya had started making use of some of the other living space they had reclaimed or built; to save on heating, they settled for bunking together in one of the derelict RVs, with her on top of the cab and him in the rear section.

"Is every day gonna be like this?"

"Reckon we'll get used to it. Last time I had to look after a kid was Ryan Fogarty, and that was just for a few hours..."

"That's fine, but I don't -want- to get used to it. My kids, when I have them, different story of course, but... Wait, wasn't Ryan Cheryl's kid?"

"Cheryl had to be talked into letting the Fogartys adopt Ryan. I think they're still in Jerusalem. Haven't heard of her since the Appearing."

"I pray that they are okay."

"Me too. That was not a happy situation. I hope she can find some peace now."

And pray they did, in thanks that the kids were safe and in concern for their friend, after lights out and before turning in.


	3. Cheryl

The red wall of wind and fire kept creeping up, slower and slower, after having swallowed most of Jerusalem. Those who had resettled on a hill nearby, to be close to Jesus when the seventy-five days of rest before the beginning of the Millennium, had been given a survey team report every other day, with movement of the storm front, interpolation, and extrapolation.

The first few times there had been meetings. The Lord was not reshaping the world gently like they thought, but He certainly had been - great storms, whirlwinds, earthquakes, even stranger things.

Each time, the small Christian community prayed over the survey report, and each time, the decision was reached that God was in control and they should stay put regardless of what the extrapolation part of the report said. After five or six times, the elder, Tom Fogarty, asked them to stop coming unless they wanted to stay and pray.

The community had settled in, and started renovating, what used to be a small transshipment warehouse; by day fifty, it looked quite a bit more like a home.

* * *

Cheryl Tiffane had been drifting. She was expecting the Glorious Appearing; she was even hoping against hope that in the Millennial Kingdom, eventually, she'd be able to be there for her son in some capacity. In the meantime, she had resolved to keep busy. When the Battle of Armageddon happened, she took it in stride; Jesus was on His throne and, she tried to tell herself, all was right with the world. Cheryl decided that the deails weren't important to her.

Then the land started reacting. Giant thunderstorms, permanent mushroom clouds, things in the sky that had no name or shape. Ground Minus One, as the containment installation had quickly come to be called, was safe, but it seemed to be the eye of the storm - most of the rest of the Holy Land was less and less stable every day.

Cheryl, like a few other Christians, found herself volunteering to try and talk the people who had moved into Greater Jerusalem and begun building their own dwellings into leaving, lest they be swallowed by wind and sand and thunder. The other volunteers welcomed her; as a Christian, she could "speak the lingo" and defuse tension. They still gave her a magnetic rifle, but she generally left it on the truck when she could get away with it and behind her back when she couldn't.

A few weeks in, there were only a handful of outposts left.

* * *

"Last call! The ion storm is approaching, anyone in the compound who wants to evacuate, come with us!"

Two CATS volunteers, goggles and helmet on so that only their mouth showed, took position to the side of the door. Inside, a frantic discussion was taking place. Should they leave? No, this must be a test of faith. Why not leave and then return later? No, the unbelievers might seize their home. Cheryl talked one of the volunteers into not answering. "It will just freak them out, they think we're eavesdropping."

"...wait, I know that voice!"

"What's going on?"

"Come with me."

After sixty seconds of fiddling with the wiring, the loading dock vertical door of the settlement started opening. Cheryl was alone outside. Inside, Tom and Josey Fogarty held hands. Ryan was curled up behind and between them, safely on one of those toddler harness leash things that had become popular during the Tribulation to keep the few children safely close at hand.

"We rebuke you in the name of the Lord! Get out of here. You are not welcome!" Tom answered in a deep, authoritative voice.

Cheryl found it in herself to just ignore him, and pointed at Josey. "You won't leave? Fine. Fry in plasma for all I care. But Ryan comes with me." She gulped, trying to be reasonable, professional. "You can have him back if the storm doesn't grind this place up."

Josey picked up a wriggling Ryan and held him to her. "This is where God wants us! We are a family!"

Cheryl found herself reaching for her service rifle, and then mouthing a prayer of thanks for having left it behind in the truck. At the other entrance to the settlement, a few people were being either kicked out by the rest of the community, or simply had decided to leave with the CATS truck.

"This is not your son anymore! You have no right to-"

Cheryl kept ignoring Tom and walked into the gloom, slowly, with purpose, towards Josey. Ryan looked at her and started waving; Josey held onto the child.

There was fire in Cheryl's eyes. "Get away from him, you BITCH!"

The punch was delivered with the strength and precision of a forklift, and broke Josey's nose with a snap. Ryan fell into Cheryl's arms as the older woman tumbled backwards.

Tom stepped forward and grabbed the flapping end of Ryan's harness leash, readying a backhand on Josie's face with the other hand. A series of clicks from the other troopers stopped him - most of the rest of the squad was standing behind Cheryl.

The old woman driving the truck called out in a raucous voice, "That your kid, Cheryl?"

"Yeah, Gloria. Long story."

Josie sat up, fuming. She started shrieking an invective, but was drowned out by the truck's horn. The truck driver called out. "Lissen, on the off chance we're wrong and this place is still standing tomorrow, we'll be back and you two can talk it out with an officer. Right now? Storm's closing. Don't matter whose kid it is if he ends up extra crispy. All aboard who's coming aboard!"

The ride back to Ground Minus One was bumpy. Cheryl gave Ryan a little squeeze; as her child nestled between her and the truck's panel, she looked back to see the Fogerty compound eaten up by the ion storm.

"Central, four... five rescues coming in, all Remnant. Do we have a resettlement vector out?"

"Drop them off at the mustering point. Can you confirm our survey data?"

Cheryl shook her head. Her hair was shorter than it had been this morning. It made about as much sense as everything else did.

"Wind... temperature... Yes, within one standard deviation."

"Pick up anyone left on the road if they flag you, otherwise get home."

Twenty minutes and two stragglers later, the cloudbreaker floodlight of Ground Minus One came into sight. Ryan was suckling on Cheryl's breast, the other people in the truck having rustled up a blanket for her modesty and his warmth. The toddler was a bit too old for breastfeeding, according to what Cheryl had been taught, but the older woman driving the truck had practically ordered her to do it as soon as Ryan had started looking disoriented. Cheryl looked down at her son, and smiled warmly at the world.

"Jesus sits there on His Throne, all is well with the whole world." she whispered to Ryan in a singsong. It was actually a march cadence, the sort that just develops. She felt her child smile against her bosom. One of her fellow troopers answered the cadence, pretty much on autopilot - it had been a tiring shift. "Keep the vacuum in the dome, we don't have to fear the Lord."

Cheryl got off at the muster point with the other Christian refugees, still clutching Ryan. The driver, Gloria, gave her a toothy smile. "Squaddie Tiffane, you're off duty for the rest of the day, far as I'm concerned. Can you sort yourself... yourselves out?"

"I think so."

The truck kept going towards Ground Minus One. Cheryl bowed her head towards the spotlight, and by extension, the Throne. "Thank you" she said, and hugged her son tight.

* * *

 _Author's note: It always bugged me how the Fogartys essentially bullied Cheryl into giving up her son into their care, so this is a bit of an admitted Take That._


	4. Flag Day

The engineer had walked methodically around, over, and inside the strip mall that constituted one side of the Children of the Tribulation site; the buildings had long since been looted, and Lionel's initial assessment is that they weren't much good other than as a wall of sorts, having survived two earthquake. The engineer complimented Lionel's call, dryly noting that there had been casualties among those who'd moved back into buildings that looked in good shape but had been structurally compromised.

"However, you no longer need to err on the side of caution on this issue. The building is largely usable. I've marked the possible weak spots, but everywhere else is safe."

No more living in tents; maybe, with some work, no more having to get in line for a shower, although water was still rationed. Everybody would feel better, Lionel figured... Tanya could watch the kids who really didn't want to move into a proper building. "Thank you."

"I understand that Naima lives here. Would you folks be interested in hosting an ethernet repeater?"

"Oh? Oh, yes, Naomi, Naomi Tiberias. And I don't know, it's mostly Judd calling the shots." Technical personnel referring to each other by screen name wasn't unusual, but it could get confusing.

"She tells me that sometimes you guys skip a meal, so the kids don't go without. We're still rebuilding a supply chain, and you being able to set up a veggie garden on the roof should help, but it's what I can offer, to help. You'd have to compete with three other collectives in the area to get the repeater, but I can put you in the running. Ordinarily, I'd say you're understaffed and couldn't take care of it, but..."

"I thought you CATS types hated Christians."

"We respect competence, Mr. Washington. Your collective has done well. Naima is known to us as an IT expert, so you being understaffed isn't a problem."

"Well... you'd have to ask Judd and Vicki, but... it would help. By the way, this is not a collective, it's a ministry."

The engineer nodded, neatly crossed off a word on his clipboard and replaced it with another, and went to look for Judd.

Above, the Sun was peeking out past the ion storm clouds. Lionel wiped his brow and smiled in satisfaction for a job well done. Planting a veggie garden on the roof would go a long way towards food independence.

Some of the kids were more receptive than others; a few had flat out asked Vicki for a story about Jesus, and now they sat in a semicircle, in the middle of what used to be the strip mall's parking lot. Around it, a low fence had been erected, with the sides of the parking lot occupied by caravans and containers and sheds that had been joined together; the place had finally gotten a coat of paint of roughly the same color (less the case in areas that the kids could reach safely, but they had had a good time with it), and looked more like a postwar village than a post-apocalyptic movie set.

"I had heard about God and Jesus all my life," Vicki began, and she was struck by the lack of fidgeting and distraction. These kids hung on his every word. "But I never really gave faith a serious thought until seven years ago, when I came back to nothing after I'd snuck out of home to go party. It was in the middle of the night..."

The engineer considered holding off on the offer. No, ze figured. These children are healthy. He showed the network node offer to Judd while Vicki kept going.

"Hold on, notification." the engineer said, preempting a question from Judd. "Oh. The Treaty has been signed. I suppose you're all Americans again, if it's your thing."

Judd smiled, held up two fingers and made a victory sign. "Whoo hoo! Uhm, how about you?"

"CATS personnel maintains extraterritoriality."

For most people, the Glorious Appearing had made the Carpathian "ten kingdoms" system moot; for Christians in particular, it had been abolished by Jesus very clearly and loudly declaring His new Kingdom during the Battle of Armageddon. However, legal and diplomatic types have to move slowly on this sort of thing; the result had been the Treaty of Saint Michael, which formally reorganized the ten kingdoms into five commonwealths and set up provisions for democratic elections in each of them. Naturally, they'd argued over the minutiae for days.

Judd was able to borrow the engineer's portable terminal for a moment to read the news. Of the first legal edicts of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. commonwealth, comprising North America and Japan, had been to adopt all the flags of the old-world states as its official flags, so that they could be flown again with an official meaning. A.N.V.I.L. followed suit, with S.A.B.R.E. and S.M.A.S.H sticking to the European and Mercosur flags and H.A.M.M.E.R. presenting a new one.

"I assume you will be teaching the children about the Stars and Stripes?"

Judd pointed at Vicki telling a story; a couple of the kids who had been helping Lionel by handing him tools joined the semicircle and sat down to listen. "Definitely! But that's more important right now."

"I see. Should I ask Naima directly about the network node bid?"

"Yeah. We'll talk about it between us tonight, and you can ask her tomorrow. Thanks."

The engineer left after making another mark on hir clipboard. That night, an American flag joined the Christian flag on the antenna that doubled as a flagpole. It was crude, and almost had the wrong number of stripes, but the kids had enjoyed making it - not least because it had provided a bedtime curfew extension - and Judd figured that he could fix the details in the morning. There'd be some for sale in at the marketplace within a day or two, anyway. Thanks to the bigger windtrap, they could even afford to illuminate it, at least for one night. He listened in on Chang explaining to a couple of kids why the illumination was important, as a symbol.

Later on, Vicki had finished her story, skipping around a little for the ending of it; even so, she felt that it was important that the kids know why they were there. Nobody had objected to them receiving a Christian education, and she'd made it abundantly clear that it's what was in the cards.

"Who's Saint Michael?"

"He's an Angel. His job is to help Jesus take care of us."

"Is he the one with the bridge?"

That had to come up sooner or later. "Yes, Cindy, that's the one."

Vicki was actually rather happy to find that Cindy had found a tank toy and removed the gun turret, but the sentiment had turned into worry when she'd used some Lego bricks to build a bridgelayer attachment instead. The worry turned into annoyance after she'd hit another kid in the head with it.

"We don't drop bridges on people."

"But you said-"

"We don't drop bridges on Angels, either. It's rude, it really is not a thing that would ordinarily work, and it doesn't really help much even if it does. If we want to make a bridge to another person, we talk to them, okay?"

Vicki had found enough time to review the Treaty; some of the provisions were fairly obscure - why was the copyright to Peter Pan a big deal for the S.A.B.R.E. commonwealth anyway - but the one about the Eden fertilizer's patent remaining extant had taken a big worry off her mind. She'd have to email Dr. Roszenweig about her work with COT; he was sure to share a portion of the windfall. No more skipping meals so that the kids could eat three a day!

She took a bit of time to put down the keyboard and pencil and thank the Lord properly. Things were looking up.


	5. Geeking Out

"That's a 1975 Dodge Sportsman, with a 440 cubic inch engine. No electronics, no computers, full analog system, and that model engine is famous for being tough and reliable so it should do fine in the badlands." Chang Wong wouldn't have been a salesman for a living in 6000 years, but enjoyed occasionally playing one.

"We do plan to cross a yellow zone... and adding a gasifier to a 440 is easy, yeah. Okay, what's wrong with it?" The prospective buyer was tall, wide, white, fuzzy, and nervous enough that his ears were twitching.

"We think the fuel line and maybe the fuel pump. Basically if you can get it to start, you can drive it off."

"Leave it to me. How much?"

"Two hundred nicks - eh, two thousand dollars."

"Done."

Chang Wong shook hands with the stranger and took the handful of bills. There were still some Nick notes in the stack, most of which had Carpathia's face defaced in some way, but most of the bills were proper dollars, featuring Jefferson or Franklin or Alfred Scard. Furthermore, this was the last vehicle to get rid of; the Children of the Tribulation site had slowly turned from a bivouac of vehicles huddling against a derelict strip mall into something that could be properly called a campus, albeit a small one. The planned building was square-shaped, with an interior garden taking up what used to be the strip mall's parking lot.

For now the only hint of the new construction was wooden scaffolding, but the plan was to get the job done in a year. With the Roszenweig Foundation matching local donations two to one, it had been relatively easy. Tanya had left; Chicago these days was almost civilized, and she found it boring - Lionel had finally taken his leave as well, pretty much chasing after the former militiawoman. Finding new staff was no longer a problem.

Chicago still had some ruins to explore, especially in the sections that had been maybe-nuked-maybe-not in the beginning of the Tribulation, but the time when scavenging runs were necessary was long past. Had it only been eighteen months? Well, Carpathia had managed to literally conquer the world in eighteen months, and in retrospect he had been a complete idiot, so, why not. For now, Chang sent the RV buyer on his way and got back to the small workshop that served COT's needs as well as the network node's.

COT was its own network node now, so he and Naomi were in the odd position of drawing a salary from CATS and one from COT. The former was sufficient for daily needs, so the two had simply not been drawing their COT pay in lieu of a tithe. It worked well for everybody. It also meant that Chang didn't have to directly work with the kids unless he wanted to or unless there was an emergency. Any day now, Naomi would find his marriage proposal, hidden in a randomized Zelda game...

Speaking of which, there was Anthony. The kid was antisocial enough to want to play videogames rather than play with most of the others, and approachable enough to talk to Chang without being intimidated: apparently "gamer" and "nongamer" were more important categories than "fellow kid" and "grownup".

"Heya."

"Sup. Whatcha working on?"

"Not a lot. Trying to fix a SNES game."

"Can I see?"

"Sure."

"Super 3D Noah's Ark! I heard about this one! It's a Wolfenstein 3D clone!"

"... and how did you find out about Wolf 3D?"

Anthony gave Chang a meaningful look. Chang returned a grin. Of course he'd figure out how to bypass the ethernet filter. "Anyway, Judd wants to set up activities centered about Noah's Ark, so I figure this fits. Apparently we're getting a professor from Australia come in, dress up as Noah, and tell the story of the Flood. Want to give me a hand?" The game console came to life. "We got three SNES... SNESes... SNESi? so I want to clone this cartridge twice so people can race each other." Chang pointed to a number of scattered components and several cartridges damaged beyond repair. "You can copy the circuit I have on the bench, it just neds all the contacts soldered on. Then make another one."

The kid was still a little intimidated by the soldering iron; he immediately put on a serious expression. "Doesn't have much to do with Noah. I mean, it's a Bible story, why bother trussing it up? We've read it at least four times already."

"What would you rather? Noah come back from Heaven and tell it to you?"

"Nah, doesn't sound that much better. A logistics sim would be cool! Build the ark from components, figure out the best fit for the various critters, set up provisions..." Anthony put down the iron for a moment.

"So... something like Oregon Trail?"

"Yeah."

Chang shared Anthony's taste in games; coding such a sim would have been interesting. The problem, of course, was that most kids - or even most adults - would end up finding such a game a chore. "Maybe we can write one for the z-machine. You keep saying you want to get into game development when you grow up."

"What did you want to be before growing up?" Anthony got back to work on the cartridge.

"Well... A game developer, actually, so I getcha there. Different environment though. Computers got faster every year, and worked the same everywhere in the world, no EMP or ion storms or pataphysical feedback, so everybody figured there was going to be a much bigger market. Now I reckon we're stuck with 16 bit boxes for the foreseeable future. Pretty much all the good pre-Rapture computers have been bought up by factories and and labs and so on. It's actually the fastest way to make it so we can build them again someday. I'd actually like to work on that."

"So why don't you?"

"I'm doing work here! Plus, Naima is here."

Chang Wong had to endure a few minutes of Anthony working to the tune of "sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g".

"Is Anthony in there?" That was Vicki. Anthony frantically shook his head. Chang sighed.

"... yeah, is he in trouble?"

"I found another one of those weird D&D booklets under his bunk!"

Anthony facepalmed. Chang had a right to feel proud; even agitated, the kid was making sure to not do anything stupid with the soldering iron, and had put it away before emoting.

"What's it called?"

"Draxonomy."

"Oh... No, that's an actual science book. New reptile species in South America."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, thanks!"

Chang sent a very grateful Anthony on his way. Later that day, Vicki still had a brief talk with the kid about being careful with books that promoted evolution, even if they discussed post-Appearing hyperadaptation. The various flying lizard pictures were pretty neat, though, she had to admit - she figured that the best thing to do was have Anthony write a paragraph on how they might fit into the Ark story.

That night, Judd and Vicki were sleeping in separate beds. It wasn't a matter of their relationship having soured; they'd just had different schedules this week, enough so that one slipping into bed late would force the other to get to work on interrupted sleep. Things were going well, only... she couldn't shake the feeling that something was about to go very wrong. She had prayed about it, of course, but had gained no insight from it. 


	6. Miracle

"Judd! Vicki! Janie! Anyone! Come quickly! Call an ambulance!"

Shelly shouted into the radio and out to the sky, and cradled the crying girl tight. She'd been building a sand castle on top of what assumed to be a dead-end manhole cover, and had been bitten in the ankle by a what Shelly assumed was rat. The animal was the size of a kitten, and looked slimier than it had the right to; it scurried off faster than Shelly's eye could catch it.

Acting on what training she had, Shelly told Cecilia to hold onto her and sing something, anything, at the top of her lungs, then bit the girl's ankle herself and sucked out some blood. She spat it out, rinsed the wound and her mouth with a water bottle, and ripped a sleeve to cover the wound before thinking better of it - the fabric was dirty. Hopefully it'd slow down any infection...

Cecilia was quickly carried inside, given ice to put on her ankle, and Vicki sat down with her to read her a story, to get he mind off it. Melinda quickly called 112 and explained the situation to othe dispatcher. "Ack that. We got an ambulance and a hunter coming your way."

"Hunter?"

"You said you couldn't recognize the critter, and it may have rabies or worse, we gotta find out. Children of the Tribulation, y'all are Christians, yes? I'd pray with you, but I'd get in the way, I'm Luciferian. Form a prayer circle, hold the kid down if she has a freakout, help will be there in 750 seconds. Good job with the first aid."

Ordinarily, Melinda would have been somewhat perplexed - Luciferians in Chicago in this day and age? - but as it was, it didn't matter. The possibility of rabies was a genuine concern.

Vicki and Cecilia stayed in the infirmary; the gash looked bad, but blood had mostly stopped and Cecilia found the gumption to laugh as Vicki read _Where's God When I'm S-Scared?_ to her and tried to do the voices.

Judd and Melinda quickly mustered staff and kids outside of the small infirmary. Telling Cecilia that they were praying for her might have worried, so instead, Melinda listened in to wait for Vicki finishing the Frankenceleery scene and then asked Vicki and Cecilia if it was okay for the other kids to pray -with- her.

The six-year-old took this extremely seriously, and shouted at the top of her lungs, with two dozen adults and a good two hundred kids following. "Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for the beautiful day, but I hurt my leg, and I pray that You make it all better and also that the kitten rat thing that bit me will be okay..."

The ambulance was a new build, electric, low-slung but built so it didn't look like a hearse, probably straight out of the Pacifican region. Since there was no traffic, it drove in with lights on but sirens off, to avoid alarming the kids. Behind it was a small hooded figure in a loud motorcycle.

Vicki kissed Cecilia's forehead, figuring that it was okay to interrupt the prayer to let the paramedic in, and left the kid alone for a few seconds.

"... who are you?" Lionel asked the rider. He and Tanya were taking a short break from each other, with him volunteering at COT for a couple of weeks and her headed off into the woods. It worked for them.

"Zhou Jin, hunter, class C. Describe the vermin." The hooded figure was small, hairless, and pale enough to look slightly green, with an aquiline nose and penetrating eyes. Lionel called Shelly over to tell him what she'd seen. He followed the two, figuring they'd need a hand with the manhole cover.

The paramedic, to Vicki's mild relief, looked much more child-friendly. She was let into the building, and opened the door just as Cecilia finished "leading" the other kids and staff across the window through prayer.

Only later did Vicki notice that the paramedic had deliberately waited until after the last Amen to enter the room and set eyes on Cecilia. However, both women were able to verify that the gash had mostly healed; it had gone from fresh to looking like it'd happened a couple of days before, and more importantly, there was no infection. The paramedic made a few notes on a pad.

"This is a miracle!" Vicki enthused.

"Probably. But just in case, I'm going to administer immunoglobulin. You're the third case of verminoid infestation for South Chicago this week."

"... but she's fine! Look!" Vicki showed Cecilia her own ankle, and confirmed with her that it didn't hurt nearly as much. The two of them quickly said another prayer of thanks.

"Yes, like you said, it's a miracle: a macroscopic suspension of normal physical laws. It happens. Now... Cecilia, was it? I'm going to have to give you a little injection to make sure it doesn't get worse again. You've been a very brave young lady, so just keep that up a little longer."

Vicki briefly considered arguing with the paramedic, but figured that even if the antibodies had no job to do, they wouldn't hurt either. Before the Rapture, her family had briefly dabbled with the dodgy sort of faith healing before getting their doctrine straight, and after a couple of very preventable illnesses in the family, Vicki had decided that trusting God didn't mean mistrusting doctors. The injection took a second.

Melinda led the kids in another prayer of thanks, and people got back to work.

"... but it WAS a miracle! You saw it!"

"Sure did, ma'am. If the same situation happens again, do just what you did now, do NOT set up recording equipment to catch the miracle working, and give the victim a few moments alone as soon as it's safe to do so. And call us anyway. If miracles were reliable they'd be called medicine. We find that there's an inverse correlation between observation of pataphysical healing and its effectiveness. Now, I gave immunoglobulin to your kid, so she will be a bit under the weather for a few days, this is normal..."

"We've just witnessed a miraculous healing."

"I agree with you, ma'am. Other side effects may include a bit of extra intestinal activity, so be sure to-"

The paramedic was getting back in the ambulance; Vicki and Judd still had questions.

"You're treating this like it happens every day. I understand that you're an EMT and probably see a lot, but... if I could effectively spread the word about this!"

"Yeah, and if my aunt had another tail she'd be a nekomata. Look, this is rare, but not crazy rare. Second time this week, for example. It happens. Mostly to Christian collectives. Good for you and less work for us! We still have to do our homework, though. The Chicago area is doing well, but it can't afford an epidemic. But yeah, those fwd:fwd:fwd emails I'm sure you get about this or that healing? I'd say a good ten percent of those are true."

"...Mostly?"

"Other faiths average three to five percent. So I guess you're doing good, This is mostly a Christian area, so you wouldn't hear much about other miracles."

The sewers carried sound remarkably well, such that the entirety of the COT campus heard a chtonian shriek interrupted by the shwing of a blade hitting metal.

"You guys are tax exempt, so, no charge. Suggest you tip the hunter, though. Seriously, if this happens again, even if you can deal with it internally, call us, we have to track vermin attacks and plan for an epidemic. Glad all went well."

Judd and Vicki waved at the ambulance as it drove off. At least they wouldn't be stuck with a bill. Cecilia was in good spirits; Shelly had bandaged the wound, and the little girl only had a slighty limp, probably more due to the bandage than anything else. Looks like that was the end of it.

* * *

Lionel sat with the couple when the search results for confirmed miracles in the area came in; according to the local hospital, there had been quite a few. The most recent, other than theirs, was the miraculous healing of a similar vermin-inflicted wound at the House of the Feathered Serpent. There was a low-resolution picture to go with it, a big guy grinning like an idiot and showing off what looked like a detailed scale tattoo that he immediately had done over the healed wound.

"What do you think?"

"I think you guys should get a newspaper subscription. You've been a bit isolated. Anyway, why not? Jesus gave me my arm back" Lionel pointed out.

Vicki checked her email only every two or three days, as a rule; now it was coming in early, since they had to get on the ethernet for this bit of research. Silly, really, what with COT being a network node site, but she didn't want to bother Naima and Chang too much, and had gotten into the habit while on the move - anything actually urgent, she'd get a phone call for. "Hey, look. Chaim's in town."

"Yeah" Lionel confirmed. "He's doing a series of conferences and wanted to pass by to check on Rayford. I was going to go with, two days from now. Want to come? Honestly both of you could use a break, even if it's just for a day."

Judd and Vicki looked at each other. Why not?

"Right. Well, we are in the Kingdom, so... miracles make sense, really. But how about these plumed serpent guys-" The door knocked, loudly.

Judd opened it to see the hunter, smelling like the sewer he'd just been in and wearing a bloodthirsty grin.

"De vermin's dead. But I'm gunna say you gotta blow the nest, 'coz you still got a few down there. Use lye, acid, gunpowder, chlorine gas. We do full service, come back with da big trukk. Leave it to me, I take a big weight off your shoulders."

Outside, wrapped in what looked like tin foil, was a stack of what Judd figured were the biggest rats he'd ever seen. At least one had extra teeth outside its face, like tusks. They'd all been neatly decapitated with a pair of hatchets that the hunter was quick to hide behind his poncho as soon as he saw that Judd saw them. Kids, being kids, were wanting to take a closer look and the staff was having a hard time keeping them away.

"Er... Thank you. We'll definitely let you know. You got a business card?"

The hunter produced one from the same holster he had his hatchet in, and flicked it at the corkboard nailed on the door. It stuck by a corner.

"Thank you, Mr. Zuljin." Vicky hoped she had pronounced that correctly. "We, uhm, aren't much of a cash economy, but in lieu of a tip, would you accept a shower and some baked vegetable casserole?"

"That sounds delicious. On that note, those wraps aren't for eating - burn the, and do it downwind."

"Uh, thanks, but we... really don't have much of a taste for meat here."

"Heh. More for me, den! Shower much appreciated. Lead on."

* * *

It had been a long, hot day, and getting rid of the carcasses had made it longer and hotter. Just a few months ago, leaving the ceiling fan on would have been a luxury; now they could easily afford it. Kenny was safely sleeping in his own little room, another luxury they had room for now.

After the initial large influx of orphans during the lean times, once things settled down and the world came back from the brink of civilizational collapse into its current state of manageable chaos, it had been easy enough to find families that wanted to adopt - enough so that COT could afford to be picky and make sure that children went to reliable, vetted couples. The plan was to gradually transition COT's focus from foster home to boarding school.

Judd and Vicki had time for intimacy again, and were snuggled against each other in the big bed.

"Watcha thinking?"

"I think that was the last emergency for a while, so... weren't we talking about giving Kenny a little brother or sister?"

"Hey, don't jinx it... Why don't we get busy on that, and if the Lord wills it, it will happen."

A bit of affectionate shuffling under the sheet later, the couple found that they were just too tired for that from the days' events.

"We should go see Rayford with Lionel and Chaim. He hasn't been in a good place lately."

"Yeah."


	7. Family

Vicki and Judd piled into the car; the last rebuild had moved the gasifier - now considerably smaller - from a rickety trailer into the trunk of the car itself. Whoever was in the back seat would have to share the room with any luggage, but the thing now drove like a regular car from before the Rapture, rather than some sort of science project. Lionel had gotten there a couple minutes earlier and loaded the boiler. After a quick talk with the rest of the staff about the day's activities, they were off.

Mount Prospect was, in one word, dusty. Given just the amount of depopulation that had occurred during the Tribulation, after the Glorious Appearing people had either huddled in the remaining cities, usually around what factories could be put back into operation, or spread out to claim a farmstead in what areas were still fertile and untouched by ion storms or plasma hail or worse. The suburbs, unsustainable without cheap fuel for transportation, had been largely abandoned; what had happened to Detroit for economic reasons just before the Rapture had gone on in every other North American city due to simple logistics.

By now, some suburban developments had been reclaimed into self-contained communities or collectives; unlike in industrial style farms, front and back years of American suburbia had generally not been subject to the Eden fertilizer, and made good soil for veggie gardens and the like. Some recovered homesteads looked like they were straight out of the immediate post-WW2, with victory gardens out front. Others had simply been torn down, to minimize fire risk and to recover the resources spent into their construction.

Rayford's neighborhood was, all considered, oddly untouched; about a home in four was inhabited, and while a few houses had suffered fire or looting, most stood.

"Wow. It looks like the day after the Rapture."

"It really does. That's... not a good sign."

The house was in decent shape, with the lawn just a bit overgrown - the three COT workers could see no attempt to grow veggies - and just a bit of sag on the roof. All the curtains were drawn. Rayford's cars on the other hand looked like they hadn't been moved since the Glorious Appearing: there were no visible mods on either of them, and the large one had deflated tires and a layer of dust covering it. The small one had been used more recently; stains on the garage floor showed that gas had been siphoned, somewhat sloppily, from one to the other.

Judd rang the doorbell. It was working. Power seemed to be on, in general.

"Captain Steele? It's Judd, Vicki and Lionel."

"It's open!"

Rayford was sitting in living room; with all the curtains drawn, the room looked bigger and gloomier. Nothing was out of place, but most things - including the frilly knick-knacks set about by Irene Steele at the time, a few of which had been painstakingly repaired - had a layer of dust in it.

The man looked older than his fifty years; he was wearing business casual for Chaim's visit, and did not quite fill his shirt, accentuating the impression of gauntness. His hair was impeccably combed, maybe a little longer than Vicki and Judd remembered, to cover over some thinning. He raised a hand. "Welcome. Sorry for the mess. If you'd like water or a soda, help yourselves."

Soda was making a comeback, although it was still a bit of a luxury; Chicago had a bottling plant, and most neighborhood markets sold a few brands or, more likely, had a stall with a compressor for people to carbonate their own fruit juice with. Lionel and Judd helped themselves and brought some back while Vicki sat down next to Rayford.

"Is Kenny here?" Rayford asked, leaning forward a little. Vicki blushed. She should've brought him.

"...I figured you and Chaim wouldn't want to be interrupted, so I didn't bring him... will you come visit later today instead? We'd love that."

The two other men sat down. "I need to get gas and groceries first. I can come tomorrow, I think..." They'd heard that a few times. It had only happened once.

Dr. Rozsenweig said that he'd swing by once the symposium at McCormick Center was over, but nobody knew when that was going to be; Judd offered to drive the four of them there, but Rayford pointed out that they might drive past each other.

They talked a little - Rayford was very interested in how Kenny was doing, and by extension, the other children. Both Lionel and Judd suggested that he come round, maybe volunteer for a few shifts. Rayford only sighed wistfully.

"Oh, you would't want an old man dragging everyone down."

"C'mon, Captain. You aren't that old."

"I'm fifty this year. Kind of starting to feel it."

"Are you doing well on, you know, groceries and bills and so on?"

The economy was a lot less informal than it had been even last year, to the poit that the commonwealth were starting to regularly collect taxes from businesses again. CATS had been pushing for a unified electronics currency, but response to that had been pretty much universally negative - the Ethernet wasn't secure enough, and even if it had been, neither believers nor unbelievers wanted anything to do with something that brought to mind one of Carpathia's most brutal policies. It was entirely possible that Rayford had come with an arrangement that let him be a recluse, which was exactly what Vicki and the others were worried about.

"Yeah. I had some of those fancy laptops left over from when I bought them from Donny Moore. I've been renting them out to a lab, a couple of factories, and an Academy. That takes care of the bills, really. The rest of the time... I was supposed to go on a mission trip to Indonesia, but it didn't pan out. Been writing, mostly. Do you think there's a market for the memories of a foolish old man?"

The three visitors assented enthusiastically, and reminded Rayford that he may have been a lot of things, but he wasn't foolish.

"So you are saying I'm old." The laughter was just a bit forced.

"You know, Captain Steele, if the CL wins the elections, they said they want to have a proper military again. You were USAF, have been a pilot... why don't you see if they need instructors?"

Communion and Liberation was an uneasy alliance of Christians, Libertarians and former militia members that constituted P.A.T.R.I.O.T.'s version of a conservative party for the first elections after the provisional government relinquished power. Ironically, the militia folks were now campaigning -against- gun ownership outside the cities being made mandatory.

"Heh, maybe. It's just... I don't know if my kind of flying is wanted anymore. I got a job offer from a cargo company last month. It's just... Well, imagine this. How would you feel about going from piloting a powerful airplane that skirts the stratosphere and the sound barrier, to steering some giant gas bag that was designed 80 years ago and moves at less than half the speed?"

"I don't know, they're both pretty cool to me. I mean, I like doing carpentry stuff, Jesus was a carpenter, but... that's what I like. What do you like? Wasn't it always flying?"

"I flew directly for Carpathia, and I'm a Christian. Can't imagine that commanding a lot of respect with what passes for airlines today. As for what I would like... I guess I'd like to be a family man. I did a terrible job at it when I had the chance."

"Hey, they called you, though. Maybe-"

Judd was interrupted by Vicki standing up and giving Rayford a big hug. "You tried to keep everybody safe, Mr. Rayford. We're here by the grace of God, but we're also here because of you. Kenny very much does look up to you, and... we're his family now, and that means you are too."

Rayford hid a tear.

"I figured Kenny needed a proper Mom and Dad. My parents had me when they were fairly old, and well... if there's anothe option, I woudn't wish it on anybody to be raised by their Grandpa." He smiled.

"Careful now Captain, Grandpa has a nice ring to it. We just might start calling you that!"

"We miss Chloe and Buck, too. We'll see them again when it's time, I know it."

"Yeah. " Rayford's smile disappeared as quickly as it had come up.

With the Rapture, the endless string of deaths during the Tribulation, and the Battle of Armageddon to top it off, there wasn't a human being alive who hadn't lost somebody. Rayford knew, as did his young visitors, that those who had been caught up in the Rapture or died as Christian martyrs were in a better place, but this did precious little to compensate for the daily absence of family and friends. Rayford didn't even want to imagine what it might be like for unbelievers. Many had tried to make a clean break with the past, moving to other commonwealth, drastically changing their looks. Some had thrown themselves into reconstruction. Yet others had decided to obey their misunderstanding of the evolutionary imperative, and set to quickly replenishing a new generation; the Quiverfull movement had made a resurgence among the believers, and various heathen cults that had popped up in the chaos preached the same message.

As for Rayford himself... he'd sort of been in a holding pattern, he guessed. Flying in circles. Some days he found himself praying for Chloe and Raymie's safe return. Maybe the Lord had decided that they were better off in Heaven than in the bubbling chaos that Earth had turned into, and that was just it. Maybe this was penance for not paying attention to his family when he had the chance to. He'd heard Vicki's comment that his house looked like it did just after the Rapture; he just couldn't bring himself to move stuff around from where last his loved ones had put it. During a particular episode of manic activity, earlier in the year, he'd even set off to painstakingly repair the damage he'd done to the various knick-knacks that Irene had made. Most recently, he had found comfort in the book of Job; he had his health, of course, and Kenny was doing very well, but the situation otherwise fit. The Biblical passage started off with a sort of challenge, Rayford hesitated to call it a bet, between God and Satan; he knew that the situation did not apply to him, Satan was bound for a thousand years - he'd personally seen Satan be thrown into the abyss! but couldn't help thinking that the situation applied. He wondered about Raymie. Tsion had once told Rayford that in the Millennium, those who had been Raptured as children would return in the prime of adulthood, with new glorified bodies; Tsion had to be wrong yet about most things, of course, but Rayford hoped that he would be on this one. Imagining Raymie having the happiest possible adolescence in Heaven, with his mother and sister, felt a lot better than picturing Raymie simply skipping his formative years.

Immediately after the Rapture, most of the world was in a daze. Sure, there had been some looting and rioting, but the enormity of the event had hit everybody so hard that most everything had sort of kept working, from trash being collected to roads being repaired. A whole civilization on the type of altitude-hold autopilot that Rayford was familiar with. He, of course, had had no time to get into a rut back then. After the Glorious Appearing... there had been a frenzy of activity, people to fly out of the Holy Land, urgent shipments of food and medicine from half-forgotten warehouses, Chloe's legacy. He'd just kept going. Then, one day, he showed up at the airport to be told that everything was grounded, be it lack of fuel or extremely unpredictable weather. And that had been that. He'd been in a holding pattern ever since. Maybe...

* * *

Rayford looked up to see his visitors praying; they must've mistaken his reverie for devotion. Chaim had let himself in, and had joined in. Not wanting to interrupt them, Rayford did say a short prayer, thanking the Lord for fellowship and - looking at Vicki and Judd - family, such as it was.

"... amen. Rayford! Door was ajar, so I let myself in. How are you doing!"

The two older men stood up, shook hands, and Chaim pulled just a little to turn it into a hug and slam on the back. Dr. Roszenweig was in excellent shape; next to Rayford, the two looked like they could've been the same age, even though the botanist was easily ten years the pilot's senior.

"Keeping on, Chaim. Sit, have a soda. How was the symposium?"

"Not bad, actually! Much better than I expected. I figured I'd get roasted abut my faith AND my work... nothing further from the truth."

"Oh? What happened?"

"Well, you've got to understand, this sort of conference used to be a series of lectures given by people who wanted the speaking role at the conference on their curricula. Lots of talking, not a lot of listening. I figured, why would something like Armageddon change the ways of academia."

Chaim continued after a bit of laughter from everyone else. "Was I ever wrong. The organizers had prepared various strata samples in what used to be the park near the convention center, so off we went to try various fertilizer and catalyst mixes on them! I'm going to be sore all over tomorrow, but it felt good to do field science again. Clever people, too, young and old! I taught a lot, and learned quite a bit myself, too." The botanist finished with a big broad smile under his mustache.

"That's wonderful! Were you able to do any witnessing?" Rayford asked.

"Not during the conference, but I've invited a couple of Academy kids over for a Bible study session later today."

Chaim spent a bit of time gushing about the extraterritorial Academies, noting that he'd talked to people who had been refugees or Unity Army grunts who, in less than two years, might have been halfway to tehir PhD's in the old world universities. "Basically, take West Point and a Montessori school, stir, add a lot of hands-on experience, and make it its own little country. It works a bit like a medieval university, really. The Academy of Bologna is trying to reclaim the University of Bologna's campus, and they-"

"Wait, their actual name is Academy of Baloney?"

"Well, Bologna as in the city, not the sausage, but yeah. They actually brought baloney for everyone. I don't really have much of a taste for meat anymore, but it went over well. They figured it was funny. Anyway, they were a big help in figuring out how to use the Eden fertilizer to leech nutrients out of the soil that got buried from the global earthquakes, and make new soil. So... I'm back in business, I guess."

Rayford did a bit of math in his head. "You're going to be a very rich man, then."

Chaim smiled. "Oh, not a chance. I plan to donate all my royalties to churches and charities. This is the Millennial Kingdom, and the Church should never want for money. However... Judd, Vicki, you said you were going to transition COT to a boarding school, right?"

"Yeah, that's the plan. We've only got a handful of orphans we haven't placed, and... actually, we were here to ask Captain Steele if we could formally adopt Kenny. Or, Rayford could formally adopt me! Paperwork's probably easier that way, we're all adults so we can just go to City Hall and sort it out."

That had come out of the blue to the former airline pilot. Sure, it was just a matter of downloading a form and turning it in, but still... "I'd love to, Vicki. Thank you."

Chaim and Lionel looked at each other. "Judd can't be a witness being as he's Vicki's husband, but we'd be happy to be."

A phone call later, an appointment had been made. Civilization was coming back, but not the the point that this sort of arrangement between consenting adults needed more than a couple of signatures in front of a public clerk.

"Thank you. I... needed something to get out of my rut. I don't think you'll want an old man around all the time, so why don't I work with you at COT for a few weeks to get my feet wet, and then talk to those cargo airship folks?"

The meeting ended on a much more cheerful note than it had started in, with the five friends deciding they'd meet again to sign the adoption papers.

* * *

Chaim had demurred when Rayford offered him his home, rather than a hotel room, to do the Bible study in; that night, Rayford was once again alone. For the first time in a good while, he'd made himself a proper dinner rather than snacking on raw veggies.

Most nights, he slept on the couch, not wanting to unmake the bed that he had shared first with Irene and then with Amanda. He usually dreaded the time between evening prayers and sleep, when memories would return, but this time, he met them with a bit of hope.

The couch had a good view of the porch, Irene having situated it so that it would face the big window, rather than the TV; Amanda had moved it, but Rayford had moved it back after coming home. He still missed both his wives and his children, of course, but... maybe he was ready to have a family again. He looked at the sky, past the porch, a gap between the houses in his neighborhood giving him a relatively unobstructed horizon.

 _First time I see the man in the Moon in years_ , Rayford Steele mused before falling asleep.


	8. Papers

A good thing about having a country (or a commonwealth - the British usage had stuck, and Rayford was starting to see some U's after O's in official documents, possibly because within PATRIOT Canadian provinces had fared better than US or Mexican states through the global earthquake) that was just a couple years out of the end of the world is that paperwork was easy. By any indication, it would remain so for a good while. Adoption papers, if everybody was a consenting adult, could be signed and filed in a single visit. Of course, this didn't stop people from repeating DMV jokes...

Giving Chaim the grand tour of COT meant that they got to city hall a little before closing time. City hall, such as it was, had been installed in a Masonic lodge on the south side, since the original buildings had proven to be unreclaimable; the staid brick building's roof was covered in antennas and, despite not being quite tall enough to reap the full benefits, featured an eggbeater style wind turbine. Rayford, Lionel, Judd and Vicki had met Chaim there: the botanist was due to leave later in the evening, taking a land-train across the Rockies to show his new results to a group of Californian investors.

"See, I'd much rather you fly me there" he chided Rayford. "Have you talked to the new airline folks?"

"Yeah, we're... sorting it out."

Having Rayford at COT had been a mixed blessing; the former pilot was elated, Kenny was quite happy to be reunited with his Grandpa, and the kids appreciated the older man's stories, both from the Tribulation - he had witnessed more than most of the staff, who were Vicki and Judd's age and therefore had been just teenagers throughout the ordeal - and from his time in the Air Force. Tanya, back from some time in the wilds and happy to be with Lionel again, listened as eagerly as any of the children.

The problem had been the staff themselves; Rayford was the oldest worker at COT, but had little relevant experience, and did not settle well with having to take on a subordinate role. Vicki had heard her husband and her soon-to-be adoptive father actually get to the point of yelling at each other over trivial differences, although they were always on their best behavior around her. While Rayford had mostly kept his professionalism, Vicki was glad that the interview with the airship company was coming up - Rayford would approach it with a better mindset than he would have at the beginning of the month, and they'd perforce put him on a tight schedule, so that he would be back in the relatively small doses that everyone at COT actually enjoyed.

The five were quickly directed towards a terminal with a printer; they'd print the form, Rayford and Vicki would sign it, Lionel and Chaim would witness it, the county clerk would scan it, and whoever did the math for PATRIOT's census office would have an updated picture of the household. By popular demand, the fee could be paid in goods, even though cash was starting to be prevalent again; Lionel had decided to make it a gift to COT and had taken a few days to teach the older kids how to engrave on wood, to the point where most door signs at COT got remade in-house; the children had loved the activity, and most of the signs had in fact been made by them, with Lionel having to just correct the occasional slip of the iron. A simple email and Lionel had a few names and positions for city hall, with the appropriate signs getting done the same day.

Ahead of them were two women of an age between Vicki's and Judd's; they were giggling, and looking like cats who'd gotten into the pantry but hadn't gotten caught. The city clerk was a matronly woman who looked like Irene might have looked like now, if she'd put on a few pounds. Rayford shook his head; it was just the hairdo.

A young Hispanic man wearing green-blue overalls called Chaim over. "'Scuse me, sir. Witness me?"

"Uh, sure."

Chaim took a glance; this guy was going adding himself to, the botanist guessed, a plumbing license owned by his family. A signature, a Nicky bill (with clown makeup) changing hands, and the young man was on his way, almost with a skip in his step. "Hey Big Bro! We're in business!" he heard him shout across the hallway.

"Next!" the city clerk called.

The two girls came up. "Business or personal?"

"Personal! We're eloping!"

"Oh shut up Selina, we're not. But we're going to miss our own reception if we don't hurry up! Sorry, I thought we were going to have to go up north for the paperwork, but-"

The city clerk had left her post without a word, and moved to the adjacent window.

"Ma'am?"

"BOB!" the woman called out loudly. "There's two girls here that want a Form 120! You handle it, please!"

One girl's ears visibly flattened; the other just made a mixture between a sigh and a groan. The city clerk motioned for the four COT workers to come close. "Next! Business or personal?"

Rayford marched ahead, with Vicki following. "Personal, adoption form. These are our witnesses." Rayford pointed to Lionel and Chaim.

"Sure thing, you sign here... you sign here, ma'am... Witnesses sign here and here..."

"Sorry about that. Betty's a bit old fashioned." The other clerk was young, and by the look of it, he'd come out of the restroom in a hurry and wasn't feeling the greatest. "You sign here, you sign here... all done!"

"Witnesses" the older woman called sternly, glancing at what was now Bob's till.

"Oh! Yeah, sure. Hey mister, witness us?" the taller of the girls asked Judd. In the meantime, Rayford and Vicki shared a gentle hug.

Judd had been reading a pamphlet about something or other, and was distracted. He noticed that the guy in overalls had forgotten his hat, pickd it up, and was looking for anything like a lost-and-found box to put it in. "Uh, sure."

Rayford caught it. "Judd, these two ladies are asking you to witness a marriage license."

"Oh? Oh... Sorry, I can't do that."

The tall girl's ears twitched again. "Aw... Er, any of you guys?" She was met with four heads shaking more or less sternly. The other girl visibly deflated, and meowed plaintively. A pair of exchanged glances made it clear that there was little point in asking the matronly clerk.

"We should've asked Daisy to come along... now what? We're going to miss the ferry!"

If the tall girl looked annoyed, her companion looked positively dejected; Vicki felt a pang of empathy after realizing that she was about to cry. Still, that wasn't right.

A red-blue shape barged in with the inevitability of a locomotive, only turning into an older man in plumber's overalls after pretty much grabbing the hat from Judd's hand. "Sorry about that. My brother's a ditz. Double parked, gotta go!"

"Mister! Witness us?"

The man stopped, smiled under his magnificent mustache, and pointed a thick finger at the clerks. "WITNESSED!"

That was loud enough to shake the windows. The girls paid in cash and ran off, thanking Bob as they went. The younger clerk quickly excused himself back to the restroom; the large man bowed theatrically, and stomped off.

"Well... That, uh, happened."

The four COT workers and Chaim took turns thanking Betty in a more dignified fashion, and Lionel handed her the engraved tags that had been agreed upon as payment. After taking a second look, the city clerk's stern expression softened in recognition.

"You're the orphanage folks, right? West of here? I've seen all three of you a few times...Bless you for what you've been doing. And - Oh, you're Micah! I remember you from the website! Thank you for leading me to Christ!"

"Chaim Roszenweig off duty, ma'am. And thank you." Chaim had actually let the website expire after the Glorious Appearing, after archiving it; he'd been too busy, first with his role in the Treaty of Saint Michael, and then with research on the side effects of his fertilizer. He knew that various church-affiliated network nodes had mirrored it, and was on record as having given his blessing for it.

Rayford looked around, as if a little perplexed by the loud intrusion.

"And this" Judd said to Betty, pointing "is Captain Rayford Steele, former pilot of Air Force One and soon the best airship owner-operator this side of the Rockies!"

Rayford blushed. If he hadn't felt ready to resume flying, this settled it - he wouldn't let his new family down. Wait, owner-operator?

Chaim smiled. "So, I was going to make this a surprise, but, cat's out of the bag I guess." A distant meow. "Mrs. Betty, since you're here and there's no line, we have a bit more paperwork to take care of..."

"Sure, I'm happy to help."

Icarus Alliance, as it turned out, was setting itself up to operate on the franchise model; if he could afford to buy in, in a couple of years Rayford would actually own the airship he piloted, much like a sea captain might have a stake in their ship during the Age of Sail. Chaim, evidently flush with resources after a new use for his fertilizer had been found, had decided to loan him the buy-in sum at zero interest.

Rayford thought back to one of the last conversations he had with Raymie; the kid had just finished reading a Jules Verne novel, and naturally, had wanted to know more about what the real-life giants of the sky were like behind the scenes. Raymie had been somewhat disappointed upon finding out, unequivocally, that Rayford did not own an airliner, or even fly the same aircraft each time. Due to the nature of the weather and other phenomena in post-Appearing world, airships had to operate more like sea vessels than airliners, from alighting on an unimproved field to being ready to stay in the air for days longer than scheduled in case of bad weather. At least leg room was a lot less of an issue...

"...and sign here. Fair winds... Captain!"

Betty's good humor had returned; by the muffled sounds coming from the restroom, Bob's not so much.

"So, those two girls, is their contract, you know, valid?" Vicki asked.

"For the commonwealth? Yeah. Communion and Liberation won the elections here, but lost the general."

"But wait, John Mallory's President. And he's a Christian."

"Yes, but the Progressives have a majority in Parliament, and Deputy Prez Juliana Fujimori isn't. PATRIOT works more like Canada than the US."

"Does that mean you'll get in trouble for refusing them?"

"No, don't worry. Freedom of conscience is in the Treaty, that covers both me and them."

"I still think we-the-people never got a proper vote on it" Rayford harrumphed. "Chaim, you were one of the Church representatives at the Treaty table, weren't you?"

Chaim finished whispering to the young COT workers, and nodded; they ran off to print a stack of documents tall enough that it might have resembled something from the old world. "That I was." After the symposium, Chaim was all too ready to switch into lecture mode. "The best way to guarantee freedom of conscience was to make sure everyone would have it... Betty, those two girls who I suggest Betty keep on her prayer list since she knows their names... The good part is that if anyone were to harass Betty for not signing their papers, CATS would have to defend her, if it came to that, no matter how much they might hate the idea. After all... would you force salvation on people, and would it be meaningful to anybody if you did? The Millennial Kingdom shall have a Church, not an Inquisition, that's what I told people then and that's what I stand by. How did this veer into politics anyway?"

"So... The last bit of paperwork we need to file is shutting down COT as an orphanage, and reopening it as a boarding school. We'll have to hire teachers, but Chaim says he's good for it until it can pay for itself, so..."

"Oh, you'll do great, I just know it! Bless you, again. Chicago can use a good Christian school. Will boarding be mandatory?"

"We haven't decided yet. Probably not. People are moving back in, and we'd like to encourage that, it would be nice to have a neighborhood again."

This time, there were some more forms. "For accreditation you'll have to get an Academy or university prof to okay your study plan once you're all set up, but you should be able to start this winter. Pretty sure you'll get someone friendly, if they're from the area."

"Out of curiosity, what would one have to do to start an Academy?"

Betty laughed. "Oh, that's a bit above my pay grade! Academies are basically their own mini countries."

Chaim agreed. "Academies basically got set up right after Armageddon, usually from existing campuses, for mutual protection of students and staff. Basically, once things got a bit less crazy... okay, got a bit more manageably crazy, the commonwealths were all too eager to live with it since it meant the difference between having a lot of smart people happy at them or angry at them. Especially if it was smart people with energy weapons and know-how that could be found nowhere else."

"I only really remember Carpathia's government. He was trying to control everything, and ended up with nothing."

"Old world governments were kind of in the middle between what happened them and what we have now. The commonwealths mostly exist because nobody wanted CATS running the world, instead of just the Ethernet. To be fair, the CATS guys didn't want CATS running the world either."

"What about Jesus?"

"Well... Jesus is on His throne."

"And all is well with the world", the other Christians intoned, ignoring flushing sounds from the bathroom that Bob had occupied. Today, this was more true than usual; the Chicago area was well on its way to having a high-profile Christian boarding school that wasn't just a neighborhood church annex. "Again, Holy Land aside... if Jesus ran everything in a direct manner, how could people choose Him freely?"

The four COT workers said goodbye to Betty, Vicki told Bob that she hoped he'd feel better, and went on their way. After dropping off Chaim at the transit terminal, they joined staff and kids - soon to formally be students - for dinner.

* * *

"If you don't bite back, you're food." That was a strange label someone had engraved. Vicki shrugged and put it away.

She noted with relief that Rayford had warmed up to the idea of airships; while refereeing a game of Wings of Glory between the older kids, she "caught" him poring over the historical section of the game manual, which featured great Zeppelins as objectives or terrain elements. When one transited under the Moon, later that night, the once and future pilot even went outside to check it out, with Kenny in tow. She gently chided both of them for keeping Kenny up past bedtime, and joined Judd for evening prayers and a good night's rest.


	9. Takeoff

Rayford had had a number of ups and downs while retraining. At first, he was genuinely put off by the notion that he had to retrain at all; he had thousands of hours on a variety of multi-engine aircraft after all. After getting acquainted with the airship that was to become his, he changed his mind after a couple of training flights: aerostats simply behave differently, and with the extreme weather and inherent danger that yellow and red zones posed, reading the wind was a much more important skill than it used to be. After nearly crashing a trainer blimp on a power pylon and being nearly dismissed for it, Rayford decided that he had something to prove all over again, and set himself to work in earnest. Of course, he still came back to COT when he could; Kenny liked the company, the students thought that the new job was really cool - Rayford had missed that - and even the staff found that the Captain was actually interesting to have around, provided that it was in small doses.

"The only thing I don't like is the name, Perdix. It sounds a bit too much like perdition. But, apparently it's really bad luck to change the name of a ship, so I'm stuck with it at least until I own her outright."

"Where's it from?"

"Some Greek myth. The company's called Icarus, so that makes some sense."

"It's Daedalus' nephew. He was a healer." Cindy piped up, then went back to reading. COT had gotten significantly bigger, but Vicki felt that everyone - students and staff - should share at least one meal a day together. Since about a third of the students were not boarders, that mean making it lunch; recess came right after, to give people time to digest, and was a generally unsupervised time. In this case, it meant having some of the kids literally underfoot. Rayford made a point of passing by when he could, mostly to see Kenny, and sometimes that meant doing the occasional half hour of babysitting before getting back to training.

"She's been on a bit of a Greek mythology kick lately." Vicki explained.

"Oh? Is that a good idea?"

"Good for her memory. And she came in second for Bible story trivia last week."

Rayford smiled. Kenny had come first, which gave the pilot an excuse to take his grandson on a brief fly-along without it looking like he was playing favorites. That had been a fantastic afternoon.

"I want to be a Storyteller when I grow up!"

"Done with the whole astronaut thing already?"

"Yeah. I wanna see the Earth first. All of it!"

Vicki gently prodded the gangly girl to run along before settling her attention on Judd and Rayford again. The pilot was saying that he'd completed basic training, such as it was, and would start taking one of the training blimps out on survey and packet runs, since the company needed the extra cash. "If everything goes well I should be able to start flying the Perdix early next year. Chaim says he's going to want to set up some sort of retainer for the ship."

"That's pretty exciting! He's still having to help us out with salaries for now. I hope we aren't taking resources away from other Church projects..."

COT had been set up on a variant of the Montessori system; even years later, the Rapture had meant that there simply was a complete generational gap. High schools had emptied themselves out during the Tribulation, and would simply not be a thing for another couple of years. Vicki wasn't looking forward to it.

With the notable exception of Academies, boarding schools like COT were a rarity: COT itself was able to exist in its current configuration largely because missionaries going into yellow zones wanted to know that their kids would be well taken care of and receive a Christian education, or parents who had lost a spouse in the Tribulation were unwilling to remarry and felt that a boarding school would provide a better experience for their kids than a single-parent home might.

Judd and Vicki had to hire qualified teachers, of course, but it hadn't been particularly difficult to find applicants; Chaim had no problem with making sure Shelly got the retraining she needed to be able to teach effectively. Lionel had opened a workshop nearby, and occasionally came in to run a shop class.

* * *

Lionel and Tanya had decided to get married at COT, to the surprise of just about everybody on staff, who assumed that the two alreay had tied the knot. The ceremony had been relatively simple, with a selection of kids singing as the choir in the school's chapel and Rayford officiating in his shiny new uniform. The competition for singing had been fierce; getting upwards of two hundred kids of varying ages to sing in harmony was no small feat, and it was surely a minor miracle that the ceremony happened without a hitch given the young age of many of the guests. The couple had intended to honeymoon in the Holy Land, but difficulties in getting there had forced a last-minute change of plans towards Greece.

"We hope to see if we can get to the port of Ashdod from there." Air travel to the Holy Land had been all but impossible lately.

"Iannis and Amethea Risto have reclaimed an Orthodox church just outside of Athens, you can contact them if there are problems." Vicki said.

The Ristos' only daughter, Ekaterina, had just returned home after wrapping up COT's first semester as a boarding school; the Ristos had taken that time to reclaim the church from an Olympian cult that had been using it for things that Vicki didn't want to discuss with kids around. There had been no violence - narrowly - and Iannis had ended up shared their botanical notes with Chaim after a deal was reached. Tanya admitted that she was looking forward to seeing the Grecian peninsula's exotic fauna and flora, but was worried abot the locals. "Oh, the Classical Revivalists are harmless. How'd Amethea put it... they dress up in leaves and call themselves the Saturnine... An aging bunch of frat boys, tilting back goblets of spliced ouzo and calling it ambrosia."

Judd and Vicki had little desire to travel; Chicago was fast shaping itself to be the world's largest Christian-majority city, and the surrounding region - to which they belonged - was remarkably safe to be in, save for the yellow and red zones to the South and West.

"So, any luck with..."

Judd shook his head. His and Vicki's union had been blessed with a multitude of children in almost every sense, except the biological.

"You guys need a vacation. Just... take some time just with each other, you know?"

"The main issue is that we're still waiting for full accreditation, and if there are any issues, we want to be here to solve them."

"It's been a year without issues, you've graduated a couple of kids... bet they just waived it and forgot to tell you."

"No, it's still listed as pending. We check every day." Vicki sighed.

"I bet CATS is stonewalling you. And Tanya's got a point, you two do need a break." Rayford interjected, and continued in the gruff patriarch voice, "Come on you two, I want another grandchild."

The people at the table laughed. Rayford (and Chaim, on his occasional visits) had been conscripted to play this or that Old Testament patriarch for Bible story time at COT, more so since the pilot had decided to grow a beard with considerable success.

"Maybe after Lionel and Tanya come back."

"You know, Shelly and the others can run things without you for a few days. You've got to have faith in your crew, let them stand watch without you." Rayford had recently made his first overnight solo flights, and was eager to share the lesson he had recently had to relearn. Airships could carry twice as much as airliners and stay in the air for two weeks if they needed to, but moved that much slower, and inclement weather or other hazards often turned an overnight trip into a two-day affair. Rayford had heard rumors of air pirates in the Mojave, but chalked that up to bored steersmen having time to invent tall tales while rumbling above the desert.

"Care to take us anywhere, Captain Steele?" Judd asked.

"Actually, my first solo as Captain is to San Francisco. I'd love it if you could come."

The Bay city had quickly rebuilt itself as the de-facto capital of the Pacifican region after the recent earthquake and dessiccation incident in Los Angeles; it had restored its reputation as a crazy place just as quickly.

"Thank you! I was thinking someplace quieter, though..."

"Oh, it's a cargo run. You'll have the ship to yourselves, basically. I don't plan to sticking around Frisco any more than necessary unless you do want a few hours to play tourists."

"Is Kenny going to be okay?"

The boy answered for himself, having made his way to the table. "Sure! Sides, I already got a ride from Grandpa the other week, so now's your turn, that's fair."

Vicki smiled. With everything that had happened, she and Judd never got a proper honeymoon - they got married in Petra, and the siege had only ended with the Glorious Appearing. After that, there were evacuations to manage, and COT to build... Judd was looking at her. She nodded.

"Thank you... Dad. We'd love to come along."

Airships like the Perdix had been designed from the ground up to be modular: since the bill of lading left a bit of extra room, one of the cabins was attached near the stern of the cargo hold so that Judd and Vicki could tour the ship if they chose but have their privacy the rest of the time. The four former helicopter rotors mounted to the side of the envelope were beating the air lazily.

If Raymie had been around to ask, Rayford definitely would have looked the part; Icarus didn't have much of a dress code - most companies didn't these days - but favored the nautical theme. All Rayford was missing was a pipe... which Lionel promptly handed him, before driving the car back; he'd be back to pick Vicki and Judd up.

"Oh, it's a bubble pipe, you put the soap and water in here, and there's a little valve... Kind of a ship-warming present, we figured. Or is it too silly?"

"No, I love it!" Rayford promptly put it in his mouth before taking a Polaroid with his adoptive daughter and her husband. Behind the three, deckhands were loading up the ship with various material, mostly construction fixtures. Chicago was steadily losing its city center skyline to reclamation and export, but that worked well for the people living there.

"Would you two like to be on the bridge for takeoff?"

Judd and Vicki assented enthusiastically. The Perdix cleared the rooftops surprisingly quick for her size; Rayford told his crew to reel in the mooring lines and angled the rotors forwards slightly towards the west. "We're going to go around the ion storm, climb up past the Rockies at Two Ocean Pass, and then head south!"

Judd remembered reading about the unusual geographical feature at Nicolae High, where it had been marked as endangered due to climate change. "Will we be able to stop there?"

"If we make good time, I don't see why not". Rayford had come to enjoy the freedom that came with operating a flying vehicle that could afford to make an unscheduled stop like that. "What is truly miraculous is that the site survived the global earthquake, the Parting of the Waters only moved a few hundred feet when the mountains returned. Now, Icarus is a bit shortstaffed on chefs, so since this isn't a passenger flight, we didn't bring one. So we're going to-"

"-sit back while I cook." Vicki interrupted. "We've been running a whole school, Captain... Dad, cooking for us and five crew shouldn't be a big deal whatever you've got left in the galley. Which way to it?"

Vicki got directions and climbed up a ladder, with Rayford nodding approvingly. "You're a blessed man, Judd Thompson."

"We're a blessed family, Captain Steele."

"That we are. There, takeoff maneuvers complete... would you like to take the wheel for a bit?"

* * *

Vicki and Judd found the gentle vibration of the generators and the lulling of the envelope as it swayed gently in the tailwind to be extremely soothing; the modular cabin had been put offset in the cargo bay, and came with a porthole. Behind and below them, the changing shape of Chicago flew past, a thousand white-yellow lights showing a city once more prosperous; further in the East, the sky was already dark, with the stars starting to come up, competing with lightning bolts to poke the darkness.

"I can see my house from here" Judd said. Vicki held his hand, smiled, and put a finger in front of his mouth.

The next morning, the crewman coming on the forenoon watch - Icarus used the Royal Navy system - stopped right short of knocking at the cabin door, notcing the "Do not disturb" sign. Captain Steele told him to try again once they got closer to the pass.

"I rather think they've been otherwise occupied. One knock only."

Hans acknowledged. He'd gotten the measure of his current commanding officer; earnest, but a bit of a stick in the mud. Best to not make raunchy jokes. Captain Steele had told the crew that anyone who wanted to discuss Yahweh or Jesus with him on downtime would be welcome to - not a big surprise in Chicago, the city was fast becoming a Christian hub - but hadn't been pushy about it. Could have been much worse, overall. Two Oceans Pass was a safe route from the elements, but he'd started hearing stories about other dangers... It'd be a hard day's work. Him and Osman took a few seconds to pray on the catwalk before he relieved her.

"Mighty Aeolus, ruler of the winds. We thank you for blessing us with your presence. We honor all your work, storms or breeze..."

* * *

Shelly was surprised by a loud knock at the service entrance; no deliveries were scheduled to come in.

"Good morning. My name is A. E. Pessimal. I'm with the Custodial Arrangement of Telecommunication Systems..."

 _Oh, great._

* * *

 _Author's note: In the first two or three books, Rayford clearly buys into the aura of glamour that airline pilots used to have, decades after this stopped being the case - this leaves him with an easily bruised ego, even after his personal redemption. Maybe in this world he can find some professional redemption as well :)_


	10. Pass

Shelly had heard all sort of stories. CATS was the last holdover from Carpathia's administration; they existed to preserve the telecommunication network and the right to access it, but they took their mandate extremely broadly. Earlier in the year, she'd heard of a kidnapping victim who was locked in the basement of a highrise in what used to be Toronto. Over the weeks, the captive had dug through a derivation box and cut power to the nearest network node; CATS identified the problem, showed up in force, and blew the kidnappers away with heavy weapons - then arrested the victim and put her in a room with a phone until she arranged for a local to repair the power conduits. Another incident had a regional assembly in ANVIL territory use a closed-door session to reinstate some of the old Chinese 'net filters; CATS responded by demolishing the assembly building overnight on the eve of the vote, so that it would have to happen literally in the open. And now, a small unassuming bald man of unidentifiable age - he could've been a very harried thirty, or a well preserved fifty - was waiting for her to let him into the school. Shelly could've pinned this guy in thirty seconds; Conrad could have with one hand. He practically radiated meekness. She figured she'd better be extra polite.

"Are you here for the inspection?"

"Oh, yes, yes, absolutely. Right now we have this compound tagged as running both a school and a network node. That's a potential conflict of interest, but we had no complaints, so I'm here to look around. Does your school have a library?"

"Yes, it's right this way."

From the air - they knew, because Rayford had done a few flybys - the COT campus still looked like it had been a strip mall originally; now, new lightweight construction had surrounded what was the parking lot, and the parking lot itself had been stripped of concrete and turned into an enclosed playground. This sort of compound-style reclamation was common enough in the Chicago area that Rayford had taken pictures of somewhere else the first time; in the post-Appearing world, neighbors generally knew each other and wanted to live together - single family homes would've been going the way of the dodo if it wasn't for the simple fact that there had been enough dodo sightings in Madagascar that the saying was starting to be obsolete. The library was relatively small, since most texts existed as files on a server, and was accessible to the pubilc by an external door during business hours. COT had developed an excellent relationship with its broader neighborhood; pretty much the whole area was Christian, so any problem that had arisen about water allocation or shared defense had ben solved by a prayer meeting at the nearby park or, lately, even within COT's enclosed garden.

"I'm Shelly. The guy supervising the kids painting the sign is Conrad, my husband. That's Janie on the way to homeroom... Hey kids! Say hello to Mr. Pessimal!"

The little man shrank back after being greeted by an enthusiastic group of kids on the way to the motor pool. "We've set things up with some of our neighbors, those guys are going to Washington Woodworks for their shop class as soon as Lionel bikes here to pick them up."

"I understand. In many communities, Christians isolate. Glad to see you don't."

"Oh, pretty much the whole area is believers. Are you, Mr. Pessimal?"

"It's extremely hard to not believe in Who you have seen. I find that this does not stop some people. However, for the purpose of this exercise, assume that I disagree with you on every item of philosophy, theology, or politics. I will now attempt to use your library's network terminals as if I was an average member of the public. Please assist me like you would anyone else."

Shelly tilted her head - the CATS man had just basically given her the answer key to pass this test. Did that mean that CATS had already sent an undercover inspector? She didn't really remember any new faces around lately...

Mr. Pessimal let Shelly lead him into the library, upon which he sat down on the rattiest-looking terminal and started attempting to load various books from the server. He looked around while doing so. "You have a number of paper books. I like that."

"We have a number of small kids, it's easier to scrape a stain off a book or reprint a page than it is to repair a terminal. We also have some old stuff, heirloom Bibles and stuff, but that's in a safe. I think the oldest book we have is from the mid 1800s."

Pessimal paid little attention to morning prayer conducted over the PA, and was polite enough to stop asking Shelly about library byrules as she prayed along and stood for the pledge. "I pledge allegiance to the Christian Flag and to the Savior for whose Kingdom it stands. One Savior, crucified, risen, and come again with life and liberty to all who believe."

"And gruesome death to all who don't" he commented, coldly.

"That's... not how it went."

"We know. Again, for this exercise, assume that I disagree with you on everything. The point is that we can dislike each other and be civil. As long as you do not censor information, it's your house and you can preach whatever you like in it. Moving on, I am having difficulties accessing" the CATS man mentioned an archive of literary erotica that was hosted somewhere in the East Coast.

"Oh, that's filtered. We have kids here, Mr. Pessimal. We will have teenagers soon... later this year in fact. I'm sure you understand."

"I understand, which is why instead of failing this facility outright, I'm asking you as the public librarian to turn off the filter for me, an adult."

Shelly had a moment of panic. Chang and Naomi did all the techie work that the school needed; she had no idea how to do that. She restarted the terminal, and got to a menu list that said something about "administrator mode", which they used to do software repairs. Surely that would give access to everything. A. E. Pessimal took notes in his steno pad. The terminal came back up, and the CATS man tried again to access the erotica archive, successfully this time. He typed some more commands after that.

"We should probably put up a privacy curtain for the public terminals" Shelly commented "the stalls are already there, we can make something like a shower curtain but shorter. That way if people absolutely HAVE to look at smut they won't expose anyone else to it."

Pessimal kept typing, and hit the enter key. "I have now disabled your net filtering, on all terminals in the school, as soon as they are rebooted. You have left a random visitor with full administrator access. This is a very bad idea. If I had chosen to, I could have erased your entire archives, ordered supplies to be delivered here and you billed for it... all manner of nefarious things. But, I could not have changed your pupils' grades, I notice."

Shelly sighed. "No, we use traditional files for that sort of thing. Easier on everybody. And you've just made the point that it's safer, I think."

"I could fail this institution, since you obviously aren't set up for unfiltered public access. However, I will give COT a passing grade as soon as you ensure that public terminals can access the network without censorship. Privacy curtains are a good idea. Since this neighborhood has no public library, you as the largest non-Academy school in it have to fulfill that role unless one is built, as per PATRIOT law. Since you also host a network node, the matter concerns CATS, so I took the job from the locals in the interest of reducing overhead and disruption. Now, I have to email in my report at the end of the day, so I figure your workshop and your IT department have a few hours to solve the issues i pointed out. I would like to pass you, so, please do so with due haste."

Pessimal's smile was waxen, but Shelly returned it. "Thank you. You're a good man, Mr..."

"A. E. Pessimal."

Shelly got to the wall phone, and made a call to Lionel - building the wooden framework and carving the rings for curtains would be an interesting activity for the kids - and Naomi. She came down almost immediately, and started talking to Pessimal in jargon which Shelly could barely recognize. She figured that the best thing to do would be to let them geek out; the tone sounded friendly.

Whatever Naomi did seemed to satisfy Mr. Pessimal; the network was restarted a few times, and by the time those two were done, an option to use the terminals in 'public library mode' was in place. All that was needed now were the privacy curtains... or was it?

"Are you going to have to sit in on classes?"

"No, I already know that this is a Christian school. So do the parents. There are alternatives in reasonable distance, so you are under no restrictions, as far as I know. The job of CATS is simply to ensure that the network remains functional and uncensored. Out of curiosity, do you teach about Armageddon?"

"Yes, in history and in Bible class. Not today, though."

"Pity. I was there. The kids might have found interest in my story. I had a unique perspective."

"That would be lovely Mr. Pessimal, but what do you mean about perspective? I wasn't, but most believers on Earth were there watching from-"

"No. I was crew on Truck Four." That would've explained his appearance, especially the lack of hair.

"Oh. But... No offence, but how did you survive, then? And if you're not a Christian, why are you helping us?"

"I'm helping you because the network node in this location has a good stability record. The minds of humanity are safest if a thousand flowers bloom, and this includes Christian schools. As to how I survived, like I said, the kids might have found interest in my story."

"Now I kinda do want your story." Naomi interjected. "But I don't know if it would be kid-appropriate."

"Ack that. Maybe you can invite me next time you teach that unit; you have my email."

Lionel and two of the bigger kids started bringing in the new privacy curtains, still smelling of fresh-cut pine. Pessimal gave them a glance, judged them sufficient, then stood and held out a hand to shake.

"I will file a passing grade on my report. I cannot promise you that it will get you accredited, but I suspect that it will."

A brief round of handshakes and the man from CATS was gone, hours ahead of schedule; Lionel showed the kids how to install one of the curtains, and they did the other two themselves. Naomi and Shelly looked at each other and shrugged.

"You should write to Vicki and Judd, they were so worried about this..."

Shelly nodded. It was a big load off everybody's shoulders: as much as governments had a lot less power than they used to, being out of legal limbo was a relief. Yet, somehow she didn't feel particularly triumphant about how the day had gone. Before firing off the email with the good news, she went to wash her hands. Twice.

* * *

"Are we making good time, Mr. Lawrence?"

"About an hour ahead of schedule, cap'n."

Most airships going to the Californian coast from Chicago preferred to go south, then west, so as to be lighter when the time came to cross the Rockies. Rayford had done a bit of statistics, however, and posited that it would be safer to do the crossing early on, so as to not risk running out of fuel above jagged or gnarly terrain. Icarus' CEO had okayed the route with "You're the Captain, Mr. Steele", which Rayford felt he had every right to take as a compliment.

The Perdix was now approaching Two Ocean Pass. The place was only accessible on foot or horseback; even helicopters and airships were prevented from landing, lest their propwash disturb the delicate natural phenomenon. A large ship such as his could afford to simply hold point a few hundred meters above and lower a line; the technique had been pioneered by the Germans during WW1, to conn their zeppelins from an observation seat while hiding the large ships inside the clouds, and had simply been adopted anew.

In this case, Judd and Vicki put on safety harnesses and let one of the Perdix' winches lower them; under them, they wore scuba-style swimsuits that preserved their modesty and body heat but allowed freedom of movement.

They stood upon the bank of either fork of Two Oceans Creek, just above the place of the "parting of the waters," and watched the stream pursue its rapid but dangerous and uncertain course along the very crest of the "Great Continental Divide." A creek flowing along the ridgepole of a continent is unusual and strange, and well worth watching and experimenting with.

They waded to the middle of the North Fork, and, lying down upon the rocks in its bed, drank the pure icy water that was hurrying to the Pacific, and, without rising, but by simply bending a little to the left, took a draught from that portion of the stream which was just deciding to go east, via the Missouri-Mississippi route, to the Gulf of Mexico.

And then they tossed chips, two at a time, into the stream. Though they would strike the water within an inch or so of each other, not infrequently one would be carried by the current to the left, keeping in Atlantic Creek, while the other might be carried a little to the right and enter the branch running across the meadow to Pacific Creek; the one beginning a journey which will finally bring it to the Great Gulf, the other entering upon a long voyage in the opposite direction to Balboa's ocean.

Rayford watched them play and hold hands, and felt a pang of nostalgia. He'd have loved to share a similar moment with Irene, or Amanda, or really the both of them, however awkward it might have been. He knew, by faith, that both his wives and his daughter were in a better place, enjoying much greater wonders, but still, he couldn't share the here and now. How often had he or his colleagues flown above this beautiful place at six hundred miles an hour? How often had he blown off Irene's last-minute affections at security just to get a preflight check done thirty seconds faster, until she'd stopped coming to the airport to wave him goodbye?

"The world used to be a smaller place."

"Ha! You're wrong, my good sir. The world's still the same. There's just more in it!"

Rayford shook from his reverie - he hadn't expected an answer, much less one from the radio. He must've left the horn up.

"Uh, hello? This is Captain Steele of the PMA Perdix, come on back?"

"I am Captain Baltor of the Blackbeard, and Captain Steele, you have something I want! So here's your choice: defend yourself or prepare to be boarded!"

Rayford glanced around; this was a joke, right? He looked around to see his crew having tensed immediately, and looking at him.

"Orders, sir?"


	11. Oddities

The other airship had been hidden behind a mountain peak, and came up effortlessly; it looked like a traditional Zeppelin, with small propeller nacelles instead of multiple rotors on gantries. A quick look through binoculars confirmed to Rayford that the aerostat had a small hangar and carried a number of flak cannons.

"We're going to heave to and prepare to be boarded. We're hauling construction materials, we're carrying nothing that's worth risking anyone's life. I will take responsibility for this with the company."

Rayford set the transponder to 7500. There wasn't much in the way of other traffic, but maybe someone or something would detect it.

"All right, Captain Baltor. I'm transmitting our cargo manifest to you. What do you want?"

"Your name on the airwaves, Steele. I'll duel you for it. Choose your weapon."

A beat of utter silence.

"... Wait, you want to fight me because you want the right to use my call sign?"

"Yes."

"Which is, in fact, my given last name that I was born with?"

"Yes."

"And you want to give me a choice of hand weapons, since my ship is defenseless?"

"Yes."

"I understand. Give me a minute, please."

Rayford looked at his crew.

"Well, you heard that. That's... stupid on multiple axes."

"Captain Steele, that guy has a bad case of Protagonist Syndrome..."

"I can see that, Mr. Lawrence."

"No, it's an actual affliction, it's close to Science Related Memetic Disorder. He's... sort of caught up in a narrative and has to play it through. If you deny him, he's liable to do something really stupid, like attack us as soon as he rationalizes an excuse to."

"So, he's going to be a danger to others. Looks like there's little choice. The problem is, well, he has guns, we don't."

"Probably why he wants to duel you. If he just blew us out of the sky it wouldn't be very heroic. It doesn't have to be to the death; is there any martial art or sport you're good at?"

"Martial arts.. it wasn't really a thing in my youth. But, I was a pretty decent athlete in high school..."

Rayford made his proposal to Baltor over the radio; the would-be air pirate accepted. It would be a log fight.

The "log" was actually a wooden beam, part of the Perdix' cargo; it had been carefully lowered right at the point where Two Oceans Creek turned into the marsh that would then divide into Atlantic and Pacific Creeks, and held about two meters aloft. Steele and Baltor were lowered onto it; the latter tossed a carbon-fiber rod to the former before disengaging the safety line. A fall into the marsh would be humiliating, but harmless. By Vicki's reckoning, as soon as their captain had left, the crew of the Rabid Wombat relaxed considerably, to the point of offering to zipline some rum over to the Perdix. A few small bets were made, even, to be settled by email later. The scene was a little surreal; did these people really intend to blow their ship out of the sky not half an hour ago?

Vicki took Judd's hand. "This is just weird. What's actually going on?"

Down below, Rayford and Baltor squared off, in a traditional fencing stance, each holding a staff. Baltor advanced, and hit Rayford's staff with his own.

"It looks a bit like that really old Robin Hood movie."

The thought crossed Vicki's mind that this whole thing had been set up for her entertainment; the whole scene came across as street theater, buskers playing Batman and the Joker on a busy sidewalk. But that couldn't be; just the fuel bill for the airships to hold position would run into the thousands of old dollars. Down below, Rayford kept parrying, letting the younger man tire himself out. Rayford's first mate distributed binoculars to watch the fight with. "Does anyone have a camcorder?"

This was Rayford's first long-distance flight as Captain; maybe this whole craziness was some sort of initiation ceremony? Vicki asked Judd, who asked Lawrence. "No, we have a crossing of the equator thing, Naval tradition, but... your father's a bit too straight-laced for that sort of thing."

Below, Baltor had pushed the older man almost to the end of the log, which by now was wiggling urgently from recoil and downwash.

"This should be interesting. If the cables holding the logs go into resonance, it's going to shake all over the place, so footwork is important."

Judd eyed Don suspiciously. "So you've done this before?"

"Long-line loading and unloading, yeah. Never got into a fight on top of the payload though. If you start seeing resonance, you hang onto the line and stop moving about, or you fall."

The log was only a few feet above the marsh; a fall wouldn't be dangerous. Rayford had caught the log's movement, and took a final step backwards so that he could hold onto the cable like he had been trained to, fight or no fight.

Baltor laughed in triumph when Rayford let go of the staff to cling to the cable. The young man then swung laterally, and hit Rayford in the sid... and promptly fell over the side of the beam as it bucked, carried by his own momentum. Rayford winced at the blow, but hung on. When he looked again, Baltor was splashing helplessly in the shallow.

"Are you all right? Can you swim?" Rayford signaled for the Perdix' half of the beam to be lowered, and after a moment of lopsidedness the two ships coordinated their winches to lower the log to the water. Rayford saw that Baltor's thrashing had turned into wading, and stayed on the log.

"Argh! You've got me! Very well, Captain Steele, you win! Let the heavens fear the name of Baltor!"

"Er, yes, okay..." It was getting dark enough that fireflies were coming out of the thicket into the marsh; a few hovered around Baltor as he stopped thrashing, then, just to top off the moment, one or two rested for a moment on Rayford's head. The older pilot smiled broadly, held the beam line in a strong grip with his off hand, and leaned forward, holding a hand up for Baltor to grasp. "I believe that this concludes our business, Captain Baltor. I will see you again, I'm sure."

Baltor took the help, and climbed on the beam - Rayford had braced against being pulled in, but the younger man had apparently decided to play fair after all.

"That was actually pretty impressive, but let's not congratulate the captain too much, for his own health. Stay professional, all right?" Mr. Lawrence admonished the rest of the crew.

The two captains hitched themselves on each ship's cable, Baltor disconnected the beam, and the ships separated without incident while winching up their duelists. Baltor's ship blew an impressively loud air horn that shook the Perdix' windows, and turned around, bound southward.

Rayford was greeted by the applause of his family and crew; Mr. Lawrence thanked him for making sure that there was no serious fight. Rayford beamed; he, Vicki and Judd thanked the Lord while the rest of the crew stood back respectfully.

"How's the schedule look?"

"We've gone from being a little ahead to being a little behind, sir, but it shouldn't be a problem."

"Very well! Collective pitch to 85%, generator to three quarters, motors to full, let's get back on track." He glanced at the weather report. "There's a cyclonic depression forming right past the pass, we can skirt it and make up a bit of time, and leave it before it gets turbulent. Make it so."

The crew saluted - crisply, for once - and got back to their posts. Rayford nodded approvingly as the Perdix resumed her journey, and went for the ship's log while the details of the fight were fresh in his mind.

* * *

The accreditation email, indicating that the actual letter would follow, came in just after the end of the day's classes. It was essentially unconditional. COT would have to have a curriculum ready for their high school, as soon as there was such a thing as high schools again: nothing could fill the age gap caused by the Rapture - but that was a problem for next year.

"Conrad, are we actually going to leave the privacy curtains up?"

Lionel and the older kids had done a fantastic job; Mr. Pessimal had indicated that something like a shower curtain would do, but Lionel had taken the opportunity to give a brief lesson on thin paneling. Later on, the panels would get decorated by whichever art class got to it first.

"For a couple of terminals, yes. In case Mr. Pessimal shows up again and, well, he was right in that there isn't a public library within reasonable walking distance, so we're it until there is."

The Chicago area had rebuilt itself faster than most other cities in PATRIOT territory by largely giving up on its city centre: while returnees to most other metropolises huddled in the center or in the historical district, Chicago had given up on most of its skyscrapers and configured itself around its ring of suburbs. This fit well with the Christian majority, as well as those who felt that it was a close recreation of the pre-Carpathia American experience, but made it essentially mandatory to own a bike, horse, or car: wanderers on foot were rare. Public buildings such as libraries had generally been reclaimed for other uses, making the school library annex rule necessary; of course, Vicki always made a point of offering a meal to any traveler who was willing to either do a bit of work around the compound, or simply looked like they hadn't eaten in a while. Fortunately, it had been less and less of a problem lately.

And then there was the young woman that Shelly was looking at. "Little Chiron's Pizza! I have an order for... Lailah?"

The woman, Shelly's age but looking a little younger, was clearly the athletic sort; she had come in at a trot, and rang the bell to the main gate just minutes after it had been closed. On a somewhat saddle-like backpack were enough boxes of deep-dish pizza to feed a whole class. Dinner was being prepared, as it was every day, and COT's kitchen was alive and noisy with staff, kids helping out as part of home ec class, and a couple of troublemakers on dishwashing duty.

"Sorry, we have a Leia here, but Lailah like the angel, no."

The delivery girl's ears drooped a bit; she adjusted her ponytail. She shrugged for a beat, then stopped the movement after realizing that the pizzas might fall off.

"If it's a prank it's a weird one, 'coz they paid AND tipped by email."

Shelly gave a noncommittal shrug. Electronic currency, once despised for its association to Carpathia, was starting to pick up steam again. "Sorry, no idea."

"I don't suppose you could sign for... 'Lailah-lan-Phanuel-lan-Michael-lan-Yahweh'? Again, this is already paid, it's not a tip scam or anything, I promise."

Shelly figured it had to be a prank; who would use an Angel's full hierarchical name to order pizza. "Sorry, no. I guess you can take them back and donate them?"

The girl shook her head vigorously. Only then Shelly noticed the pink triangle pin on her tunic. "Aw, man! I trotted all the way out here, was going to take it easy and walk back... they'd get cold!"

Shelly considered. The food being prepared right now would keep, and there was enough pizza on the girl's back to give a slice to most anyone who'd want it. She didn't want to play favorites in case there turned out to be more kids than realistic pizza slices, though. "All right, we'll take them. Thanks."

The girl stretched awkwardly in order to unload the pizzas; Shelly let her, and only took the boxes when they were put in her hands. She sagged from the weight and went back inside.

Three minutes later, the delivery girl figured that nobody was going to sign for the pizzas, and left after giving the door frame a bit of a hoof kick. Good thing she'd been tipped in advance!

Roughly at the end of the meal, Little Chiron's Pizza called COT's front desk to confirm that the delivery had in fact happened, and that was the end of that.

"I was a bit worried, we have a slight leak in the pantry, you know what I mean?"

"Goes to show that God still works in mysterious ways."

"Yeah, but... pizza? Next thing you know the kids will want it every week!" At least it was proper Chicago deep dish.

"I think we can afford it every once in a while."

"Not from Little Chiron's, though. Let's see if we can make a deal with a Christian pizzeria..."

"Do you think it was just Chaim sending a care package?"

"No, he'd have sent proper groceries. And he wouldn't have used an Angel's full name."

"He knows some of that angelology stuff by heart though." Shelly shook her head; that had been more Tsion's thing, admittedly.

"Yes, but he wouldn't use it inappropriately."

The mystery pizza was a topic of conversation for a couple of days. Naomi confirmed that the order had been placed from within COT using admin access, but neither her not Chang had done it; the staff eventually settled on the possibility that Mr. Pessimal had it sent.

* * *

"All right crew!" Vicki called out on the ship's PA. "Tonight's dinner is risotto alla milanese!"

Of course, with the crew working with British Navy style watch shifts, it was only dinner for captain, guests, and two of the deckhands; to everyone else it'd be either lunch or breakfast.

Courtesy of some waste heat from the generator, Vicki had turned a forlorn bag of rice and bunch of onions in the pantry's far reaches into something that smelled good enough to overpower ozone and motor oil.

"Where did you learn this? It's great!"

"Would you believe that one of the kids' moms taught me when they dropped him off? Very simple, too, rice, onions, bit of seed oil, red wine..."

Rayford looked at his crew with an air of annoyance. "Gentlemen, I thought I said no alcohol on board on cargo runs." Other than one deckhand, everybody looked various shades of guilty. Vicki resumed talking.

"Oh, it's my fault! I traded it with the cook on Baltor's ship. Anyway, making risotto heats all the alcohol out, so dig in!"

Rayford ignored the collective sigh of relief from the crew. "All right. Just for this once, since we have guests."

Judd had managed to get an ethernet signal on the ship's terminal just before dinner, enough to load email headers. "Also, we got accredited! And pizza, apparently."

"Congratulations!" Rayford, Judd and Vicki toasted with apple juice.

Later that night, the young couple watched the desert file past through their cabin's porthole, hand in hand. It had been an odd day, but a full one. This time, they didn't bother putting something in front of the porthole; it looked out of the envelope, so who would bother peeping?


	12. Statement

The rest of the trip to San Francisco happened with little incident. Flying past Nevada, they saw the ethereal shape of a classic flying saucer zoom past, from the north and way up above. To Vicki, it had looked like a poor special effect, translucent and with a black border. To Judd, like a sketch moving across the sky's blueprint paper. Rayford missed it entirely.

"That's pretty normal" Mr. Lawrence had said "we're nearby what used to be Area 51, so... yeah. The actual airbase is smack in the middle of a red zone, so we're not even going to try to swing by it."

Rayford's change of route after the fight had paid off after all; they'd get to California in time and with the fuel tanks just above reserve levels. The small amount of turbulence had only meant that Judd had been conscripted to help the second-shift crew secure the cargo, an experience that he'd enjoyed.

The Bay Area had maintained most of its beauty through the Tribulation, and in the years after the Glorious Appearing, it had managed to recapture the best of its history, half hippy paradise and half hotbed of innovation. One thing that had helped was that the entire region had taken anti-seismic measures long before the global earthquakes; a significant amount of infrastructure had simply remained, and was being put back into use as the population increase dictated.

Rayford had spent all his professional life around airports, and was used to both the hustle and bustle, and the great variety of people one would meet both in the terminals and on the tarmac. After landing the Perdix in what used to be a Boeing maintenance hangar, minus the roof and plus a number of cranes and gantries for rapid transloading, he decided that there was time for Vicki and Judd to play tourist for a few hours - they'd landed in the morning - and for the crew to get two shifts off. The Perdix would get unloaded of the construction materials brought from Chicago, and pick up a small but valuable cargo of solar panels. Heh, now Baltor would actually have a reason for boarding them...

Two of SFO's terminals were still intact; one even had a pilots' lounge. Rayford made his way there. This part of the airport looked like nothing at all had happened, no Rapture, no Tribulation, no Armageddon. It was a bit of a guilty pleasure for him; put non-prescription sunglasses on, and he could tell himself that everything was as it had been. In the last few months, they'd even reactivated some of the moving walkways; the one letting people move past the ruined terminal was arguably better than the old ones, a meshing system allowing for the middle section to go a lot faster than the ends. Rayford climbed the stairs - the escalator didn't work today, but he made a point of getting a bit of cardio in if he could, just as he had before the Rapture - and found himself in the captains' lounge. The place was pristine; flat screens had been replaced with CRTs and projectors, captains and pilots napped on the comfortable seats or chewed the fat in small groups, and there was even a full bar. The only thing that was different was more ornate and varied uniforms - a change that Rayford approved of - and different labels on the drinks. After converting, Rayford stayed away from alcohol, but couldn't begrudge moderate drinking in others. After all, a small pick-me-up between flights was enshrined tradition...

The lounge had wide windows, from which one could see planes, flying boats and airships come and go. "What'll you have, Captain?" a blonde girl asked him as he sat down on one of the couches. The place smelled of recently cleaned laeather with a hint of cigar - smoking bans had gone the opposite way of the dodo, even in a progressive city such as San Francisco.

"Pineapple ginger sparkler, please. And a mashed potato, fully loaded, veg-bacon."

"Coming right away, Captain."

Rayford tuned out the waitress' green hair, and watched a Fokker trimotor take off from the bayside runway. For a moment, all was perfect in the world.

* * *

Judd and Vicki got off the airport train. It was more or less as they'd imagined it: loud and smelling of, well, people. Judd was wearing the jacket of one of Rayford's spare uniforms after he'd assisted with an oil spill and got his own change of clothing messed up, which would have made him look a bit overdressed most anywhere, but not here; while he was definitely overdressed, it didn't look any weirder than the average San Francisco denizen. Vicki had reassured him that it made him look distinguished.

"Carl and Cole, Haight Street..."

"Weren't we supposed to get off at Embarcadero?"

"It's all good, we can walk a few more blocks. I didn't want to miss it and end up in the tunnel, it scares me a bit."

"Oh, don't worry. The tunnel hasn't worked since the big quakes, and - Oh, wow, that's a really old map! Trade you?" The girl's smile was friendly, but her appearance made Vicki shrug and back off half a step. "Uh, we're fine, I think, thank you."

Walking up and down hill within a city was something that neither of them were used to; it wasn't particularly tiring, so much as strange to have to mind traffic while using hiking muscles. San Francisco was, of course, a lot more compact than the suburbs of Chicago; the sheer density of people was fairly new to the young couple.

The Embarcadero waterfront was, much as their old pre-Rapture guide had promised, full of buskers and people plying a trade; the difference might have been a greater proportion of sailboats from the era of cheap gas, but Vicki suspected that the sheer variety of people was a product of the place rather than the times. She and Judd played tourist for most of the day, dropping off the occasional dollar and mite to artists painting surprisingly realistic vistas with water pistols on corrugated cardboard or doing nigh-impossible handstands and acrobatics on the waterfront's balustrade.

Vicki was genuinely worried about being approached for fortunetelling or something lewd, but Judd held her hand in his the entire time, and she caught him darting a meaningful look at people who looked less than savory. Overall, they had to admit to each other, the place looked prosperous, maybe even more so than their home.

Vicki collided with an old woman who might have walked out of the Snow White cartoon, or at least a play of it: she was hunchbacked, with a long nose, and a squint and wearing a black cowl. Judd immediately checked his coinpurse; this was a classic scam. The two women fell over, with the older lady ending up pretty much sprawled on top of Vicki; Judd managed to help both of them up. After the obvious apologies, the old woman touched Vicki's belly.

"Congratulations! Akna has blessed you two! But she's not a bullet for the war."

"Eh? Sorry, we don't want any." What was she talking about?

Judd and Vicki walked on; she was worried about getting catcalled, but instead, Judd attracted a bit of attention with the incongruous combination of a captain's jacket and a pair of jeans. Before returning to the airport, they decided to visit a church, and found on their map - which must have been fairly old indeed, since overall they'd gotten three offers to buy or trade it - that the closest was the Old Cathedral. Their map had identified it as a Catholic church, but after asking one of the street vendors, they learned that it had been put back into commission as a Christian church after surviving the earthquakes. "Hey, mister, that map-"

"You know what? Fine, I'll trade for a current one."

And that's how Judd ended up as the puzzled owner of a top hat with a feather on it, since the vendor felt that just exchanging maps wouldn't be a fair trade. Vicki mock-fawned on it, announcing to the world at large that it made Judd look really dignified and receiving a few cheers for that from passersby.

"This whole place never really stopped being crazy, did it?"

"Oh, come on. It's all in fun and it's a better souvenir than most of the stuff we saw on the Embarcadero."

Judd sighed, took Vicki's hand again, and the two walked uphill to the cathedral. The old brick building was, in fact, still there; any damage from the earthquake had been repaired early on after the Glorious Appearing, and by the look of it, it had resumed its function as a house of faith. Vicki and Judd took a bit of time walking around it before entering.

"SON, OBSERVE THE TIME AND FLY FROM EVIL - ECC-IV-23" the Art Deco plaque said under the clock; a small sign under it explained that the clock was still indicating the local time when Armageddon happened, and that a decision had been made to not restart it. The inside was dark and cool without being gloomy, and the two were heartened to see a few people kneeling at the pews even if no service was going on; one of the ushers was asking another couple to cover up before coming inside.

"Still looks kind of Catholic" Vicki commented after a glance at the statues. Judd had just taken off his new hat when another usher came over to explain. "The people here wouldn't have it any other way, this is one of the few places that survived 1906, even though just the walls and bell tower were left after the fire. We Paulist Fathers preach sola scriptura now... and tolerate the occasional tourist."

"We're with Children of the Tribulation."

"The orphanage?"

"Boarding school now."

"Really! Interesting. Say, here in the Bay Area there used to be a seminary up north, and we're looking at reclaiming..."

Vicki left Judd and the usher - deacon, rather, as it turned out - to talk shop and knelt in front of the altar. Quiet and peace settled on her as she prayed silently, thanking the Lord for a safe trip and asking for a safe return.

She thought back at what the old woman had said. "Lord" she dared ask "am I pregnant?"

Vicki felt shaken for a moment. The chaotic chiming of a few things dangling inside the church, and the distant thump of a door closing, told her that it had been one of those frequent little earthquakes that the Bay Area is subject to normally, but to her, for a moment before she realized what it had been, it had felt like a baby kicking.

"Thank you, Lord." She'd talk to Judd and Rayford later; for now, she just took a few more moments to kneel before the altar, enjoying her happiness.

Judd helped the deacon put a few fixtures back upright, then went to check on Vicki; she beamed at him when he asked if she was all right.

"I'm better than ever!"

She told him about her prayer, and the unexpected answer it'd gotten. Instinctively, he put a hand on her tummy. There wasn't anything to feel yet, obviously, but it didn't stop him from looking awed.

"Wow. What are we going to call him?"

Vicki smiled. "There you go, just assuming it's a boy. Well, you tell me, then!"

"How about Raymond? In Raymie's honor."

"I think Captain Steele will like it. And if it's a girl... Selah. Good Biblical name."

"I like it! For now, if you aren't tired, Brother Marcion said that we should check out the Exploratorium before we go back to the ship."

Vicki laughed gaily. "Listen to yourself! If you aren't tired... what will you do when I'm showing, put me in a safe?"

That mental image brought a similar, far darker one to mind to both of them, and their faces turned serious.

"Actually I think I'd like to just go home."

"Yeah, me too. Nice place to visit, but I would never live here."

Judd helped Vicki on her feet, the two thanked the deacon, and crossed themselves before leaving the church. In the few moments they'd been inside, the noise in the street had changed; it was quieter, but felt like calm before a particularl nasty ion storm. Judd and Vicki looked both ways before crossing the street and saw two large groups of people facing each other in the street; what little automotive traffic there was had left pretty quickly.

Neither of the couple really knew what was going on, other than it was pretty obvious that these two groups of people were wanting a fight; both factions, four or five dozen people or so each, were breaking out sticks and baseball bats. Judd saw nobody with a firearm; San Francisco didn't have much of a gun culture before the Appearing, and didn't now. Vicki saw no sign of law enforcement anywhere.

The two groups came to a stop at an intersection, shouting things like "mutants" or "freeloaders" at each other. Vicki yanked Judd's arm, prodding him to go back inside the church - the deacon had opened the door and was urging the few remaining passerbys to come inside.

Judd urged Vicki to take shelter, and took a step forward.

"I am with you in this" he heard a slightly un familiar voice say, for this occasion in a pleasant West Coast accent.

Vicki watched her husband firmly settle the top hat over his head and stride forward, epaulets shimmering in the midafternoon sun. On most other moments, it would have looked ridiculous, but here and now there was a presence about him. Moments later, Judd was standing in the middle of the intersection.

Facing the faction that he thouhght was most aggressive, Judd took the top hat off, knelt, and began shouting.

"Our Father in Heaven!"

"Mic check!" someone yelled.

"Hallowed be thy name!"

A few other people reprised the prayer, Vicki loudest of all, tarrying at the door. Some took a picture.

"Thy kingdom come!"

A few boos from both contingents of would-be rioters were shut up from within the respectice ranks. Marcion stood guard outside of the church's door, and repeated the prayer after Judd, along with Vicki.

"Thy will be done!"

A tall, wide-shouldered woman came out of the group of people facing Judd, and bowed. "We're sorry, sire."

Judd wanted to say that he had no right to be called sire, but figured that he should keep going with the Lord's Prayer instead. He slowly raised his hand hand at the woman.

"On earth as in heaven!"

"Yeah, yeah, we get it!" An incredibly hairy man from the opposite group slouched over to where Judd was, and raised a huge arm; Vicki had to catch herself from running to her husband's defense.

"Give us this day our bread!"

Most people were repeating the prayer, with some uncertainty. The hairy man stared at the big woman, and also raised a hand. Next to the still kneeling Judd, the two shook hands.

"And forgive us our sins! As we also forgive our debtors!"

The last phrase, everybody repeated, then Judd was allowed to finish the prayer without interruption. Vicki noticed that a few people from both groups went as far as joining Judd in the Amen; the others had simply started talking to each other. From what she could understand, whatever the dispute was, it would be settled in a game of soccer. The two groups started mingling and dispersing, most people headed towards the Bay, a few towards the church.

Judd was left thoroughly confused by a pat on the back from the man that had felt like it came from a gorilla, and an attempt from the woman to kiss his cheek that had instead turned into kissing his hand when he flinched. He quickly rejoined Vicki; Marcion was telling the people who had taken refuge in the church that it was safe now.

"That was weird. Especially that lady. Kept telling her I'm not the Emperor of anything..."

Vicki smiled, and gave him a peck on the cheek. "I'm not jealous, you know. And hey, you look pretty fancy, with the hat and-"

Looks like someone had made off with the hat while the small crowd crossed the intersection, after having been pacified.

Judd shrugged. "Makes for a better memory than a souvenir, really..."

"Says Emperor Pouty Face."

"You make a good Norton, man" one of the tourists that had taken refuge in the church commented. To Judd and Vicki's surprise, the tourist handed them a business card. "Send you the photo by email if you poke me."

"Er... thank you."

After this little adventure, Judd had an easier time talking Vicki into skipping a visit to the Exploratorium - they both wanted to be back on the ship at sundown.

* * *

While waiting for takeoff, Vicki poked the address she'd been given, a small robotics company, by the look of it; a couple minutes later, she had a handsome picture of Judd in full regalia marching straight in the middle of the impending riot. The photo's contrast was a little off; his face, half-shadowed by the hat, looked like it had one of those 1800s sideburns.

"Judd! Come check this out!"


	13. Angel

For the return trip, Captain Steele decided to complete the square, going over the Arizona desert first to avoid the Rockies almost entirely, and then making the trip north in the middle of the continent. The Perdix had left San Francisco a little before sunset, and crossing the desert at night would prevent having to fly through hot air that would reduce the airship's buoyancy and force her to spend more fuel.

"The Mimal route" Lawrence had explained to Judd and Vicki" from the states initials, although we tend to stay further West in real life. He drew them a map of Mimal the Elf Chef on some scratch paper. Neither of them had heard of the mnemonic.

"I remember it from school, actually. You guys teach school, right?"

"I guess we're co-principals, but yes, we also teach. K-to-twelve, well, K-to-8 right now on account of the Rapture gap, obviously."

"It's going to be interesting to have high schools again."

"Not looking forward to dealing with it, personally. My girl, she's got a little boy on the way. We're going to get married as soon as we can afford a decent wedding, either after next trip, or the one after."

Vicki smiled. "You know, if you ask the Captain, he's probably going to be OK with giving you an advance if you want to make a honest woman out of your lady. Do you want me to talk to him about it?"

Laurence tilted his head at Vicki. Judd just nodded in agreement. "That would be a kindness, ma'am."

After the desert, the Perdix passed close enough to a long-range beacon that Vicki was able to check her messages. The news from home were fairly positive: the accreditation paper had arrived, there had been another unplanned, paid-for pizza delivery - this time from a Christian business, Lelo's - and Dr. Roszenweig had agreed to cover the small pantry discrepancy with a groceries drop.

With Hans at the helm, the Perdix was making her way north back to Chicago; Rayford was already planning his next trip from the choices that the Icarus dispatcher had transmitted him. By the look of it, there was nothing short-range enough that would cause Kenny to only miss one day of school; Vicki had an absence longer than that.

"I'm sure something will come up, if you request it now it will give them some time to line something up." Judd opined. After that, the conversation at the small captain's table moved to other matter. Rayford took a bit of time to listen to Vicki noting the goings-on at COT.

"A trickle of food missing, eh? If COT was a ship I'd say you've got a stowaway."

"And the extra shipments, the pizza and so on?" Judd asked.

"A very considerate stowaway, then, he obviously wants to pay you back!"

"But... why? I mean, whoever it is, there's still plenty of empty houses around COT. It's not as if they have to worry about rent."

The stowaway idea made sense, though. Vicki decided that when they got back they'd use it as an excuse for some very late spring cleaning. 

* * *

The little space used to be the two backrooms of one of the stores that COT had originally been built of. It was small, close to an area that had been deemed structurally unsafe for people and best used as architectural support only, and at some point shelves had been put in front of its only door so as to be able to use a bit of the space as a closet. A few of the smaller kids, as kids do, had wandered in and saw past he tool boxes and ancient office supplies to notice that the closet had space beyond them. After moving a few boxes, they had a kid-sized hole to crawl through.

Over the few years that COT had been in operation, the kids had grown up - enough to need a bigger aperture, and with it better camouflaging - but the secret had not been spilled; enterprising preteens had put up scavenged plywood, wires, and even a terminal. The back room had been decorated, of sorts, with a Narnia theme - it felt appropriate - and filled with the sort of thing that one would expect to find in a treehouse or reclaimed crawlspace; old blankets, board games, some books of questionable provenance, and the like. An elaborate plan to repair a mini-fridge and sneak it in so as to be able to store beer had been meticulously made, tested, prepared, and then abandoned when the kids talked about it focusing on the destination rather than on the journey and decided that none of them actually cared terribly much about beer even if they could figure out how to buy it. As it is, it was a good spot to hide after pulling a prank, have the occasional extra cookie, read a bit of Harry Potter, and play D&D. Such had been the case a few weeks earlier.

"...the thief, Black Leaf, did not find the poison trap, and I declare her... dead." Cindy said solemnly.

"No, not Black Leaf! No, no! I'm going to die! Don't make me quit the game. Please don't! Somebody save me! You can't do this!"

"Marcie, get out of here. You're dead! You don't exist any more."

The kids laughed at how stern Cindy had managed to sound throughout; Marcie looked a bit upset for real, so Debbie got up and gave her a hug before she left. Tomb of Horrors was pretty unforgiving, and adding stakes to the game - in this case, character death meant having to leave the room, to decrease the chance of the adults worrying about kids not being visibly around - had made it a bit more interesting.

Marcie quickly gobbled a dry cookie, and the light bulb was turned off to let her leave without drawing undue attention to the closet door.

When the lights came back on, a diminutive Angel was standing on top of the game map. The four remaining kids looked up.

The creature looked like a black haired young woman in her late teens, in a white tunic, with red-brownish wings poking out of two cuts in the back. Elianto took a brief peek and confirmed that she was, in fact, wearing some sort of underwear under the tunic.

The celestial being spoke in what sounded a lot like a stage whisper. "I am Lailah-lan-Phanuel-lan-Michael-lan-Yahweh, Angel of Night. Please, hide me!"

And that had been the end of D&D club, at least until the Angel had been taught the rules for all the board games and tried them all at least once. 

* * *

Life at Children of the Tribulation went on, as lives do; Rayford and Judd had come back with an interesting story or two to tell about their trip, and even though the pilot's subsequent outing a week later had been more mundane (and shorter range), the trip had inflamed the students' imaginations. Judd, for his part, was mostly happy that the Captain and himself had been blessed with the opportunity of being positive role models.

"It's the third time Rayford tells this story today. The kids are just eating it up."

"Are you surprised? It's got a zeppelin pirate in it. Besides, it's not like he's exaggerating it."

"I'm worried about what that crewman said about Protagonist Syndrome, that's all. Rayford does... well, he does have a bit of an ego."

"I looked up Protagonist Syndrome and Science Related Memetic Disorder. Sounds like a made-up psychobabble thing to me. Rayford handled things well and prevented anybody from getting hurt, he should get to brag about it a bit."

"You did that too, and you haven't."

"Do you think I should?"

"You stopped a street fight with a prayer. It'd make for a really good lesson in ethics class." Vicki gave Judd a gentle peck on the cheek. "Come on. I'll make you a new top hat."

Judd lifted his hands in mock surrender. 

* * *

Mr. Pessimal's demonstration hacking attempt had reset the terminal in the hidden room as well; much to their delight, the kids there found that the system still had admin access, since Naomi's fix had been applied manually to each terminal and thus hadn't reached the hidden one.

From there to adding a bit of chocolate or berries to COT's foodstuffs delivery agreement was a few minutes' tapping on a keyboard; from there to feeling guilty about it and undoing the operation was thinking about it for thirty seconds.

Still, there was an extra mouth to feed: Lailah had explained that in this dispensation, an Angel deployed on Earth would require at least some substenance. Was it possible to use a terminal to make enough money to cover for it? 

* * *

Rayford always felt a little uneasy at night. In Petra, he would discuss the Millennial Kingdom that was to come with Tsion, with the theologian doing most of the talking. One time, he'd told hm that the Moon would give as much light as the Sun, and the Sun would likewise be supercharged in proportion. Tsion cited Isaiah 30:26: "Moreover the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold.". Tsion had added that it would be so bright that people will have to wear sunglasses any time they are outside, twenty-four hours a day; Rayford couldn't tell at the time if his friend had meant it, or if he was just making fun of the pilot's habit of nearly always having sunglasses on his nose.

Rayford reasoned that Tsion had figured out that they were prescription, and wanted to poke a bit of fun at this little bit of vanity. Even so... cloud cover and stratospheric phenomena permitting, the stars were all there to see. What did the darkness hide? Rayford wasn't really worried about crime, per se, and it was a simple fact that the animal kinds that had populated the Earth before the Rapture had been rendered peaceful after the Glorious Appearing. Yet, the sheer scale of the world's depopulation during the Tribulation had left large swaths of the world with no artificial lightning; even what remained of the interstate road system was generally not lit at night.

Given how sensitive GPS was to electrical noise, Rayford had had to retrain to be able to orient using the stars, like the ancient sailors. Yet, every time he did so, he felt uneasy. It's all part of God's creation, he reminded himself.

"All I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by..." The Perdix continued on her trade route, steered steadily by Captain Steele. 

* * *

By the beginning of the following week, someone had set up a mat with a suspended beam three feet above it in the gym. It looked safe enough, so Judd decided it could stay; they had decided to not have a martial arts course at COT as a matter of principle, but it seemed like a good idea for older boys to blow off steam in a controlled environment. Someone had even suspended some cotton-and-cardboard clouds around the beam.

The older kids had set things up pretty well: let Lailah do her thing on the network - she showed them the basic of building what would have been called a website during the Tribulation years, although nowadays it had to be optimized to work with the decentralized Ethernet - and put money in the COT account, which would then be withdrawn for the occasional grab of pizza, candy, and the like. They figured that as long as she was putting in more money than she was taking out, well, she was paying rent, really.

And, she had really good stories about Bible times. Cindy got in trouble once for repeating the one about Lilith in class, but otherwise, it was a good way to pick up mnemonics, which Lailah referred to as "psi algorithms".

And, if you got hurt on the playground or only got a C on the test that you legitimately studied for as hard as you could, a winged hug and the encouragement of an adult friend who doesn't report to the teachers can be truly uplifting.

All was going well until Vicki, after reviewing the accounts, decided that Children of the Tribulation was overdue for a spot of spring cleaning. Being smart, she started doing the work herself a few days before announcing it. How would Chloe handle this one, she asked herself? By being clever. After confirming with Marjorie Armherst, their biology teacher, that where there's candy there's ants, all she had to do was watch ant movements for a while... 

* * *

The winged girl was found in a room hidden between a tool cabinet, eyes wide open in the dark, plugging away at a terminal. Around here were board games, bags of candy, and various bits of half-built things. She seemed to own nothing but a mattress and what little clothing she was wearing. She had safety goggles on.

Judd, having been called in by Vicki, locked the door behind himself and joined his wife; she was beginning to show, and if it came to a physical confrontation - even though Vicki had said it was unlikely - he wanted to be between them.

"Okay. Who are you?"

"I am Lailah-lan-Phanuel-lan-Michael-lan-Yahweh, Angel of Night. I've been... uh, fired. I need to learn how the world works. This was a safe place to do it in. It says so on your front door sign. Please."

"Angels don't get fired. They fall, if that. That'd make you a demon. I think you're a transient who took advantage of our students' good heart, personally... so give me one reason why I shouldn't just call the police and have you removed from the premises." Judd simply didn't want to deal with this person.

"There's a problem, having an unauthorized adult in here looks really bad on us" Vicki added. "I understand you haven't done anything untoward, but I can't let you stay here. What I think we should do is give her a meal and send her on her way. As for you calling yourself an Angel, if I had to find anything offensive in your behavior, that would be it. Lying to children. Really? Couldn't you just knock at the door?"

Lailah stood up and spread her wings - she hadn't in a while, and there wasn't exactly a whole lot of room to do so, so the movement looked less impressive than it was intended to. "I do not lie! I told you why I'm here."

"There's no such thing as female Angels."

"Look me up. I'm in the Talmud. Sanhedrin 96a. And if you want, I can explain why-" Lailah stepped away from the terminal; oddly enough, it was open to a relevant datalink. Judd and Vicki paid no attention.

"It isn't part of canon scriptures. If you want to talk your way out of this, at least limit your stories to the inspired word of God."

"My wife is right, you know. If you had approached us in the open, maybe we'd have..." Judd, like just about everyone else he knew, didn't particularly care for those who would sully the Imago Dei with things like tattoos or implants; wings were definitely right out. "... I don't know, helped you find a job or something. I've heard enough. You're going to stay here and wait until the cops show up."

Lailah flinched, and took a half step back. Judd had already reached for the wall telephone to call 112 with.

"Wait, that's going to scare the kids... and possibly the parents" Vicki told him. "Maybe we should just let her go."

"That's not safe. If we let a transient go after she ate under our table for months, it sets a bad precedent. Besides, even if you believe her story about having been fired, well... what does that make her? She's dangerous."

Vicki sighed and nodded - Judd had made up his mind, and as much as she was curious, she had to admit that he had a point. "All right. Just tell them to come and take her away, don't explain, we'll save that for a judge if it ever goes to court, OK?"

Judd agreed, and made the call. Lailah looked resigned, more than frightened; Vicki pointed out that COT was unlikely to press charges, since it'd make the school look bad. Lailah actually thanked her. Vicki couldn't resist making a bit of conversation while they waited for the police.

"So what do you mean fired? Not that I believe your story, don't get me wrong, but let's hear the rest of it."

"There is to be no night in the Millennial Kingdom, since the light of the moon should be as the light of the sun, so what's the Angel of Night good for? There was no more point to me, literally. Satan is bound for a thousand years. Nowhere for me to go, so here I am, walking the Earth and flying when the weather's good. Sounds a bit like a comic book, doesn't it?"

Vicki had to agree to the last part. "But... there is night. If there's one thing that hasn't gone weird on this Earth, is the day-night cycle. So how do you explain that?"

"I'm still here, aren't I? Some people say that the Battle of Armageddon hasn't ended yet, and the world is holding its breath. Except it's been doing so for years."

"Yeah, yeah, I read that in the same usenet threads you have. So you, supposedly being an Angel, have the inside scoop?"

Lailah shrugged. "I don't. If I did, I would tell you, and you wouldn't believe me, but I don't. But seriously, look me up. Ask Dr. Chaim, or any other Jewish scholar that you trust. People like me, well... being told that we don't exist, hurts."

Vicki felt a maternal pang for the winged girl, then realized that it was probably part of the scam. She didn't want to put the children under her care at risk.

"Well, Angel of Night, here's a suggestion for you, maybe don't hide in the shadows. You obviously can hold a job, and there's no shortage of them. Walk up to a place - during the day - and see if they're hiring."

"They're sending a squad wagon in a few minutes, since it's not an emergency" Judd interrupted "oh, and some guy from CATS. I think it's the same guy that did the inspection a while ago, so we should be okay."

Vicki noticed Lailah freeze in terror for a second. 

* * *

The paddy wagon got there in record time. Unsurprisingly, A. E. Pessimal was riding shotgun, the Chicago cop having been sent to make the pickup looking none too happy about it.

"Layla Luckett, a.k.a. NiteOwl81. Cat burglar and hacker. Identity pre-Armageddon unknown, records missing. Order a DNA test."

"Hold on, don't we get a say?" the local cop asked.

"No. Custody is now transfered to CATS."

"Because she's really an Angel?" Cindy asked before being told to go back inside by Judd.

"Because her crimes were against the network infrastructure. Whether she's an Angel or not does not concern us."

A. E. Pessimal turned towards Vicki, seemingly having ignored his young interlocutor having been shooed off, and continued.

"However, we would like to interview your students about-"

"You know what? No. This has been disruptive enough, maybe even traumatic."

"Ma'am, you operate a school, not an Academy. You don't have the right-"

"She does" said the local cop "because, you habeas your corpus and I can't stop that, but I say we are done with our inquiries, so don't harass these folks any more."

A. E. Pessimal figured he'd better not push his luck, and nodded to the cop. After checking with Central about the live capture and DNA test equipment being prepared, he watched the paddy wagon speed off while wrapping up the preliminary report on his stenopad.

"Unknown why an Empyrean would take the trouble to establish an identity as a cat burglar, since they usually just try to make a beeline for Ground Minus One and the Throne. Recommend gentle interrogation. The entity has taken time to learn from humans about the workings of our network, and even then, did not immediately try to use it to further its presumed immediate goal. Entity signature confirmed to be Empyrean, but mode of action closer to Dysprosian. Have the Red and Blue team made peace? Possibility is troubling enough to consider it a potential terminal danger to the data network."

Pessimal was refused a ride in the cop car, and, after bowing stiffly to the COT headmistress and her husband, started walking off towards the next closest network node. He really hoped Central would read the report before Dr. Vahlen did, or the "gentle interrogation" part would go right out of the window and possibly into a probing pan. 

* * *

"Dr. Roszenweig-"

"Chaim, please. Or Micah, if you like." The older man gave the COT faculty a twinkly smile; after all, that's how a good chunk of them had come to know him. After Layla had been found, a staff meeting had been called - COT was obviously getting too big for the current informal style of leadership, and would need to change some of its procedures. Taking the opportunity, Chaim had made a radical proposal to Judd and Vicki.

"-Chaim, why do you want COT to be an Academy? It's a lot of extra overhead..."

"Two reasons. One, more autonomy, that's never a bad thing and right now we can afford the overhead. Two, Saint Michael's Council."

"What about it?"

"It's seven votes, one per commonwealth, one for the churches, and one for the Academies. Right now, Christians outnumber any one pagan cult, obviously. I fear that this may change in two or three generations."

"And us having Academy status would give a leg up to missionaries! Storytellers get some diplomatic immunity, right?"

"Correct. The other reason is that the Church vote is pretty much always decided by the largest ekklesia, which again is us for the foreseeable future, but the Academy vote, by gentlemen's agreement, is rotated. This would give us two votes at least some of the time, and with some lobbying, it can be used for the times when it really matters."

"This is ridiculous! Why are we scrambling about for two votes out of seven? This is His Kingdom, and it is our world! We should-"

"Captain Steele, please. Jesus is on His Throne, and all is well with the world, but at present, we should focus on the possible, not the ideal. I move we vote." Lionel's interjection had been sudden enough to cause Rayford to shut up.

"Second." the older man said, still sounding as resolute as he did earlier.

After a brief prayer for guidance, the staff voted, and the motion easily passed. Children of the Tribulation would take steps to become one of the Planetary Academies. 

* * *

The room was cozy: no uncomfortable chairs, no harsh lights, no handcuffs. If anything, it looked like a counselor's office at a community college. It also had about fifty thousand Nicks worth of telemetry equipment recording everything on every portion of the spectrum, all artfully hidden.

Unsurprisingly, the interrogator had gotten the Empyrean to defend its Master, even after said Master had, by the Empyrean's account, rejected it. The words were unimportant; all intel had been extracted already. Behind an optical curtain, the little bald man was more interested in pheromone density in the air, body heat, and tonal inflections. Quantifying emotions was more an art than a science, of course, but fuzzy numbers beat no numbers.

"There was a battle, and we fired the last shot. I think that counts for something."

"It doesn't! It's like... there was a ball game, and it ended Jesus 1, Satan nothing, and it doesn't matter how many goals you score, it's past the end whistle, and anyway, you weren't playing! If a streaker runs in and scores a goal, it doesn't count!"

"It does when ending the game means the death of ninety percent of the human population. Besides, strange game, if one of the teams has the referee in it. The only winning move would have been not to play."

"Yeah, well... that's how it was written, and that's how it went, live with it!"

"Ah, but you see, that's just the thing. This wasn't a game. It was a boxing match."

"What's the difference?"

"The difference is that in boxing, even if the ref is against you, you can still win by TKO."

"Is that what you think you did? Jesus is on His throne."

"Yeah, well, you tell me if all is right with the world." Now for the one-two punch. The interrogator played back, at accelerated speed, the last few minutes of the conversation. Lailah had no problems following, or even noticing her own reactions.

"You think the ringmaster runs the circus, do you? Only by the consent of the clowns, Mrs Layla. Only by the consent of the clowns. Now, why were you defending Him, if He supposedly fired you?"

Lailah sat down, deflated. "I... I don't know. I know what the right thing to do is. Everything in my being demands that I do it. But you are right, it would result in an intolerable amount of death and perdition, just so that the Rapture martyrs and Old Testament saints can come back from Heaven for a while. And yet- Wait, that was Terry Pratchett, right?"

The interrogator let Lailah change the subject after noticing that, in the last twenty seconds, her heart rate and perspiration had gone up to near-heart-attack levels. "Right. Hmm, so you did sit yourself down to learn. That's new."

"Storytelling theory is... important. Will be important."

That was definitely new; she'd come across the British author as parts of a memetics course, rather than just picking up some fiction. "Agreed."

Lailah smiled, for the first time in the interview. "I know where his sword is. I can take you to it. It has power. It can have more power. I know that you've been looking for things like that."

Now it was the interrogator's turn to freeze in shock. "Mr. Pessimal, call Central. Lailah, why would you be helping us? What's the trick here?"

"I don't... I can't do tricks. Why am I helping you? Why am I defending Him? I don't know! I've been pushed out and there's no room for me and I know what the right thing to do is and the right thing to do is worse than the Holocaust! How do you people deal with it! I... I want to do the wrong thing! I want to see the world before it gets flattened to a pancake! Why can't we just - live!"

The interrogator let himself fall for what he intellectually knew to be a pheromone-induced effect, and gave Lailah a brief hug. "Welcome to the human race. Now, what do you know about that sword?" 

* * *

_During the Tribulation, shortly before the dissolution of the UK government into the United Great Britain States, Queen Elizabeth knighted fantasy author Terry Pratchett, who reportedly saying on the occasion that "you can't ask a fantasy writer not to want a knighthood. You know, for two pins I'd get myself a horse and a sword." Later that year, he took his new station of Knight Bachelor seriously: Pratchett took it upon himself to forge a sword using more than 175 pounds of iron ore found in a deposit near his home in Wiltshire. For good measure, he added several chunks of meteorite — "thunderbolt iron" for their "highly magical" properties: "you've got to chuck that stuff in whether you believe in it or not." With help from his friend Jake Keen — an expert on ancient metal-making techniques — the author dug up 81kg of ore and smelted it in the grounds of his house, using a makeshift kiln built from clay and hay and fuelled with damp sheep manure. After days of hammering the metal into bars, he took it to a blacksmith, whom he helped to shape it into a blade, which was finished with silverwork. Said Pratchett: "Most of my life I've been producing stuff which is intangible and so it's amazing the achievement you feel when you have made something which is really real." After the Battle of Armageddon, his whereabouts are unknown and he is presumed deceased. The SABRE commonwealth has a standing order to rebuff treasure-seeker for supposed mystical artifacts such as Excalibur, and the inclusion of this sword in the protected artifact lists indicates..._

 _\- Storytelling and Memetic Momentum in the post-Armageddon Age, McGraw-Hill Ethernet Press, Datalinks_


	14. Resolutions

Like everything else, Christmas was a lot of work.

Vicki had to admit that she didn't mind it one bit: even with trying to transition Children of the Tribulation from an orphanage, to a boarding school, to a full-fledged Academy, it was heartwarming like few other things could be to know that the postcards that the first and second graders were writing to Baby Jesus would be read, or at least seen, by adult Jesus Himself.

She quietly walked along the rows of wooden desks, correcting the occasional spelling mistake; all the children were aware of the privilege of completing their tasks, and took it as seriously as as three dozen kids aged 5 to 8 can be realistically expected to, which to Vicki's contented surprise, was actually quite a lot.

Maybe, this time next year, if everything worked well, she would even be able to take the trip to the Temple and deliver them in person! For now, all she had to do was sign off on an ornate wooden box (months of effort by Lionel's shop class students) addressed in impeccable calligraphy to

ATTN: JESUS CHRIST  
BLDG: HOLY OF HOLIES  
LOC: GROUND MINUS-ONE  
POSTCODE: 65535

This was the fourth year of the tradition, and the first year in which things actually got done properly and the cards were sent out so that they'd get to the Holy Land by Christmas. Vicki simply hoped that He would appreciate it; goods had a harder time getting there than people. "We're trying our best, Lord. And we thank you for the opportunity."

Two rooms away, Judd and Chaim were discussing logistics for the new year, having decided to let Vicki relax and do what she really wanted to do - be a schoolteacher - before she was called to make the final decision.

"Yes, I know we still have three years of rapture gap for the high school, but at this point there are enough precocious or late students that we'll have to at least generate curricula for those grades. Whether we can afford it or not is a moot point, we need them in case the Academic Senate wants to see them! You know they'll ask."

"How have the other Academies handled it?"

"Haphazardly. Pre-Event lesson plans with a bit of editing. They're mostly shunting kids into AP classes with college-freshman-level students, or holding them back a grade. Thing is, they can afford to be sloppy, whereas we cannot. Despite my best efforts to reassure my colleagues, Judd, the Academic Senate doesn't want an Academy associated with any one faith. They won't reject us outright, since it'd open a can of worms, but they will latch onto any excuse for doing so within the existing framework."

Finding land that a commonwealth was willing to cede to the new Academy had been surprisingly easy: Judd's biggest worry had sorted itself out with Chaim making a phone call to President Mallory, who in turn called the governor of the Heartland territory, who in turn called the mayor of Chicago, and a few days later the current footprint of Children of the Tribulation was ready to become, for most intents and purposes, its own tiny nation-state. Judd didn't particularly like relying on this sort of good-ol-boy-network solution, but given that the land grant had come with several blocks of unclaimed land going from COT's current location to the original site of New Hope Village Church, it took him a dozen heartbeats and a quick prayer of thanks to realize that it was a huge gift horse to try and look in the mouth of.

"At least we sorted things out with Parks and Rec. That was really the only remaining paperwork hurdle."

The believers living in the area had been extremely happy to move once the project was greenlit, and the few unbelievers that had moved into the largely residential area were handled by Shelly and Conrad, who had essentially made the relevant deals with local construction companies and promised to do the relocation work for free. A few years into what Judd was still happy to call the Millennial Kingdom, it was no longer possible to just move into a home left empty by the Tribulation, nature having done its reclamation work to the point where it wouldn't be efficient to do that in most cases, but there was still plenty of formerly prime real estate available. The new campus would border the Mount Prospect park district and contribute to its maintenance, with the Academy's public-facing buildings reachable from that direction. Despite being without Chloe's talent for logistics, the "academic conspiracy" as Chaim had called it had done well in navigating the real estate and paperwork issues.

Much like a few years before, the real obstacle was accreditation; in this case, that meant peer acceptance from the existing Academies.

"The good thing is that I've got a bit of political capital to spend. Everyone wants to just get on board with the whole 'hyperphysics' model, and I'm getting some recognition for having been one of the first to identify parts of it. The main issue is still Prokhor Zakharov."

"I thought he wasn't an Academician anymore."

"He lost the Russian elections, so he was offered his post at Chernogolovka Academy back. Which means that we have to put in our bid quickly, by the end of the year at the latest, because he will make trouble for us. He's already started to push for going beyond the hyperphysics 'compromise' as he calls it, and return to a unified standard model."

"I don't get it. Why can't people just... accept miracles? They never really went away."

Chaim smiled at the young man; while Judd had little inclination for the sciences, the botanist considered him easily the equal of his scholarly pupils - his direct approach was a welcome change of pace from the intricacies of scholarly society in the Millennium.

"Because that's the problem with miracles, or magic as the unbelievers call it... they're not reliable! God may see fit to hold up a bridge during a storm so that nobody dies from it, but you'd still have to go back the next day and call in the civil engineers to fix it up. Scientists and engineers like patterns. They want a stable foundation to build from, again. So naturally they've been scrambling for one that works regardless of where you are or what you believe."

"But doesn't that just go to show? We are building upon a rock, while they build on sand."

"And, to stay in metaphor, that's why they want to reinvent concrete. The main reason why I want to build a Christian Academy is specifically to show that to the world in a way that even the most hardened empiricist cannot deny. People like Doctor Zakharov are... well, I would not say scared personally, not after the stunt he pulled, but frightened about the possibility that the universe is only intelligible to God's mind, and not to ours."

And that, of course, was the other eight-hundred-pound gorilla. Zakharov's first act upon returning to full-time research work had been to schedule, and quickly obtain thanks to his credentials as an Academician, a visit to the Third Temple. CATS had no authority to censor anything, but the audience's transcripts that had showed up online had been quickly surrounded by edited and entirely made-up versions, so that the small but influent community of people who cared about such things had no way to tell what had and what had not happened. Dr. Zakharov himself had quietly announced that he would make his own version of the story available as part of a paper he intended to publish, which would therefore have to wait until peer review.

Fortunately, one of the peers had contacted Chaim privately, to offer a preview. While the botanist would not dream of disrupting the publication process, he had immediately decided to share it with COT's co-principals, if nothing else to bolster their spirits.

Vicki entered the room with a theatrical sigh and flop on one of the armchairs. "Ah, the joys of wrangling children..."

After a good natured laugh from Chaim and a hug from her husband, she was quickly brought to speed on Chaim's goodwill trip while making a few corrections to Judd's work on the paperwork angle.

"This stuff is all going wait until after New Year's anyway, that's bureaucrats for you. Come on, we want to hear the story!" Judd said eventually.

"Shouldn't we wait for Rayford?"

"Well... no. I'd rather tell you the story, and I'll share it with Rayford at a better time and place. We've known each other for longer, you understand, and I don't think he's in a good enough place for this sort of thing right now."

The airship captain had recently finished paying for the Perdix, and had recently found that accomplishing such a large life goal had brought with it tiredness and longing after the initial elation; the lack of a clear next goal, combined with the holidays, had reawakened Captain Steele's despondency about his wife and daughter still being gone. After it had been all but promised that the Tribulation martyrs would return during the Millennial Kingdom, it was a tough pill to swallow, and other than a brief planned appearance at the solemn Christmas service in a few days, the captain had decided to more or less hand Kenny over to COT for the holiday season, and skip it himself.

Judd and Vicki nodded. "Is he going to be okay? We'll still see him at church, right?"

"I think so. I'll go see him after we're done here. Just... I don't know if he wants to be around younger folks right now, he's worried about being a downer."

"In that case, tell him that his assignment is to also write a postcard to Jesus, and we won't ship the box out until he does, indeed we won't!"

Chaim smiled. That might actually help.

"Anyway! So, after losing the HAMMER elections for Premier, Dr. Zakharov pretty much stepped back into his old office. No big news there. I don't know if the Temple visit was already planned or if it happened because he lost - honestly I'm mostly happy to see a Russian election happen without drama, Prokhor did well in the cities but lost by three million votes and conceded before the electoral college certified it, imagine that happening in post-Soviet times - but he treated it as if was a trip to Antarctica or something. So he taught himself Hebrew, we even exchanged e-mails a few times about it, and lip-reading, and then had CATS pick him and a crate of lab equipment up from Chernogolovka to go to the Holy Land..."

"Wait, he emailed you? I thought you guys were going to be arch-enemies or something. At least that's the way he makes it sound."

"Oh, you know me. I'm happy to see someone learn, and I have to say, he did put in the effort to be a humble student of linguistics. In private, anyway. We're definitely not friends, but that's the thing with professors, if you are anything less than courteous, you give ammunition to your rivals. So... lots of passive aggressive behavior, really. Anyway, imagine Academician Prokhor Zakharov show up at the Temple dressed like a Ghostbuster, literally with a cart full of equipment in tow, and ask for an audience!"

"How did that turn out?"

"About as well as you'd expect. The Levites there were not amused. In the end, CATS took the equipment and made sure it was set up outside of the Temple proper, which apparently was good enough for some things. Then, Zakharov entered. Of course he was on his best behavior."

Everyone who cared knew that nobody left an audience with the Savior in the same state of mind that they'd walked in with. Without a Word, Jesus could look into the innermost self of a supplicant - and of those who came in without any intention to supplicate - and make them truly reflect upon it.

"Kind people might find out that they are cruel. Brave men discover that they are really cowards! Confronted by their true selves, most men run away screaming!" Chaim continued in his best Engywook impression.

There had been instances of instant conversions, fatal heart attacks, people going amok and trying to batter down the steel walls of the Holy of Holies with their bare fists.

"So... what happened?"

"They... talked, after a fashion. As you can imagine, Dr. Zakharov came in convinced that he'd do most of the talking, and true to his nature, he did. And then... Jesus answered. Just a few words, for all we know. Dr. Zakharov read His lips. And answered!"

That was definitely new. Granted, all they had was a second hand account of what the Temple personnel reported - believers and non had agreed that what was said by Jesus to someone was at least as sacred as a conversation between patient and doctor, or attorney and client, and would be kept private - but it was a rare nonbeliever that would actually hold up a conversation.

"And they went back and forth, five times. I do believe that's a record. And Dr. Zakharov left with a grin. The only thing he said is that he was looking forward to analyzing the telemetry data, and that he and Jesus had reached an understanding."

"What a conceited man!"

"That's... every bit the picture of the arrogant scientist I was worried we'd get, Chaim. So what's the good news?"

"The good news is that after getting back from the Holy Land, he's basically left his second, Dr. Petrov, running the Academy. No symposia, no lectures... He's been holed up in his lab analyzing his findings ever since, or so I hear from my contact in Chernogolovka. Whatever they talked about, it was enough to make him drop everything else."

"Maybe he wants to convert!"

"Dr. Zakharov is an extremely methodical man, and wouldn't even go to the restroom without planning it out. So, I wouldn't go that far, but I think... maybe we can hope. Even if he was to abstain about our application to the Senate, well, it would be enough to let people decide about us on our merits. Which is its own kettle of fish: on one hand, we can't begin some work until we have Academy status, on the other, we need to show that we are building a world-class facility to receive it..."

"In that case what are we waiting for!"

"The new year, I should think. Let's have a thankful Christmas with the students and faculty we do have, before we get back to work."

As Judd and Chaim shook hands, Vicki wondered what had transpired between her Savior and the man who, as the world turned, had proven to be the main obstacle to the great goal. Her portable terminal beeped with a new e-mail.

"Dear Mrs. Byrne, I will be delighted to deliver your care package to Ground Minus One personally, any time in the next 36 hours. Summon me at your convenience. Yours, A. E. Pessimal."

* * *

The Christmas Eve service was a large, pomp-and-circumstance affair that took the better part of the evening, starting with the play put up by COT students and segueing into traditional worship.

For the occasion, the divider wall between COT's great hall and its chapel was removed; the better part of two thousand people filled the auditorium.

Naomi had volunteered to coordinate the ushers, which worked out for her remarkably well, since she could get out of any singing that way; the job was made more interesting by the fact that COT's midnight service attracted people who otherwise had a church home elsewhere, or didn't much care to go to church, just as many might have before the Tribulation.

Just a few minutes before the play, she was dealing with such a family. In the specific, what she guessed was the eldest daughter of a visiting family was causing some problems to a fellow usher, so she made her way to that door.

The family's eldest daughter was wearing makeup intended to accentuate age, since she could not possibly have been in her late teens due to the Rapture gap; Naomi pondered that this was one thing that would've been unimaginable in the previous dispensation, then remembered about another bygone institution, the drinking age.

"This is a traditional service: all are welcome, but only in appropriate formal attire. No visible piercings or body mods, except on ears by women" had said the flier, which the usher was helpfully pointing at. While the young lady who perplexed the other usher was dressed appropriately, if a bit too monochromatically black, her pointed ears were visibly sticking sideways out of her dark mane. Naomi didn't even bother sighing.

"See, I told you they wouldn't let me in! I didn't even want to come!"

"Young lady, you are under our roof ad you will come to church at least for Christmas!"

"Sorry ma'am, I can't..."

"Told ya! It looks silly anyway." "Shut up! Well you know what? Now I actually want to! That's my little cousin playing one of the three wise men!"

Naomi interrupted what had degenerated into an instant family quarrel. "Well, the flyer as written says that body mods on ears by women are okay. No Oxford comma there."

The dad backed her up. "Actually... is technically correct, and like I always say, that's the best kind of correct."

Naomi put on a passable imitation of Vicki's best stern schoolteacher expression, and took off her hairband, releasing her hair from the bun she'd bundled them in. "Here, will you let me - Here we go. Just don't, uhm, headbang I guess."

The daughter's hair had been held up just so by the hairband, keeping the points of her ears covered and pulled back.

"Uh... Thank you. I know this means a lot for my family. That's why I decided to come."

"Maybe you should listen to them."


End file.
